Tag Archives: incrementalism/personhood

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Four Practical Tips for Responding to the Burning Fertility Clinic

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A pro-choice argument in the form of a series of arrogant tweets recently went viral. You would think that with all that bravado, there would have been something new or interesting, but, no, it was just the same argument that has been around for decades. Disappointing as the argument was, I did find it interesting that, the last time I experienced this argument on a college campus, the person making the argument had a similar aggressive tone.

For some reason, pro-choice people tend to think this argument demolishes the pro-life view, so it’s important to be ready to respond to it efficiently (meaning you need to focus on just a couple of disanalogies, not all of them) and persuasively (meaning you need to convince them that you aren’t just weaseling out of a problem with your view).

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.
Timothy Brahm responding to the burning fertility clinic argument.

Tim talks with Ann (mostly obscured) with two pro-life volunteers watching.
Photo credit: Justice For All. Used with permission.

Here’s what I did at a Justice For All outreach at UCLA in May of 2016. (You can find much of what I did in Robert George and Christopher Tollefsen’s book Embryo: A Defense of Human Life, which I highly recommend. Robert George also wrote this excellent article recently.)

Ann: So if life begins at conception, what would you do if you were in a burning fertility clinic and you had to choose between saving a born baby and ten frozen embryos?

Tim: That’s a great question and I’m happy to answer it, but it’s a good example of the principle that it’s easier to ask a hard question than it is to answer it. Are you willing to give me a few minutes to answer, or are you just trying to trap me?

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Disagree With a Pro-Lifer’s Strategy? Don’t Compare Them to Planned Parenthood

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Editor’s Note 2/9/21: Just a reminder that this article was written in 2013, when the makeup of the Supreme Court was quite different than it is in 2021. The point of this article is about pro-lifers comparing each other to Planned Parenthood, and it doesn’t rely on whether or not the current Supreme Court would support overturning Roe.

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes.

I need to vent a little. I just read a statement from Rep. André Jacque who is pushing a personhood amendment in Wisconsin that frustrated me, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen this kind of thing. I believe that a common talking point that grassroots pro-life people on both sides of the incrementalism/personhood debate both use needs to be retired.

State Representative André Jacque

State Representative André Jacque

State Representative André Jacque proposed personhood amendment in Wisconsin two weeks ago. Predictably, it has caused a lot of debate among the pro-life community in Wisconsin, because the people that are usually referred to as “incrementalists” are concerned that this bill will get nothing accomplished at best, and harm the pro-life movement at worst by adding significant case law against us. (Hint: if you support personhood legislation and you don’t know what stare decisis is or the huge role it played in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, you probably ought to look into that before supporting personhood bills while the majority of the Supreme Court is in favor of keeping abortion legal.)

Wisconsin Right to Life and NRLC attorney James Bopp have both expressed concern about the personhood amendment for pragmatic reasons, and Rep. Jacque’s response was this:

“Quite frankly, it’s kind of odd to see them on the same side as Planned Parenthood and NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League, on a piece of legislation.”

I am so sick of seeing pro-life people that have strategic objections to personhood legislation because they want to see abortion made illegal as quickly as possible compared to Planned Parenthood and NARAL, who are trying to keep abortion legal for as long as possible.

To be clear, while I have seen several leaders from the personhood movement compare incrementalists to Planned Parenthood, I have yet to see a pro-life leader from

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Why I Think Pro-Life Groups are Wrong to Fight the 20-Week Abortion Ban

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A lot of people have asked me about Georgia Right to Life’s response to the 20-week abortion ban. In case you didn’t know, they made national news by asking the pro-life legislators of Georgia to vote against the pro-life bill when a rape and incest exception was added, a necessary condition of getting it passed in the House according to members of Congress, congressional staffers, and members of the pro-life lobby.

Full disclosure: I used to work for Georgia Right to Life. I’m grateful that they offered me a full-time pro-life job when I didn’t have one.  I worked there for three and a half years before resigning my position after failing to change their mind on the legal strategy that is now in the spotlight. I’m very familiar with their arguments, and they are even less convincing to me now than they were before. That’s saying something because at the time I thought their strategy was so harmful to the pro-life movement that I changed jobs so that I wouldn’t have any part in that. Most of that story and the gritty details will stay with me and me alone. I’m not interested in attacking pro-life organizations. But I am very interested in helping pro-life activists to think clearly about matters like this.