Tag Archives: listening

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What To Do When Standard Pro-Choice Talking Points Feel Crazy

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What do you do when pro-choice talking points feel so stupid or so evil that you don’t even know what to say? I talked in my last blog post about what to do when something is so far beyond the pale that even most pro-choice people would agree with you about it—like if someone actually straight up says it should be legal to kill toddlers to reduce overpopulation. Often if a pro-choice person says something like that, it’s because they feel trapped. So I talked about some strategies for helping them feel safe enough in the conversation to edit what they said if it’s not really what they think.

But there are some things that feel obviously crazy to a lot of pro-life people that don’t feel crazy to a lot of pro-choice people. If the pro-choice person you’re talking with says one of those things, it’s probably not because they feel trapped, but just because it just genuinely doesn’t feel obvious to them the way it does to you.

For example, let’s take a close look at “I know it’s a human being, I just don’t care.” Not every pro-choice person would agree with that (and many wouldn’t put it quite that starkly), but a lot of pro-choice people agree that a fetus is a living human organism, and some will even grant at least for the sake of argument that fetuses are people with equal rights, and they still think abortion should be legal. What’s happening when a pro-choice person says that?

Step 1: Clarify

Step 1 is the same whether you’re dealing with something that feels crazy to most pro-choice people or something that just feels crazy to you—and sometimes it can even help you figure out which of those two buckets you’re dealing with.

If you have lots of dialogue experience and training and you have some guesses about what they might mean, offering multiple plausible, smart options for what they could be saying is a great way to go. It will help reassure them that you’re not trying to straw man them—you genuinely want to understand the smartest version of what they think. But if in the moment you’re genuinely just flabbergasted, you can only think of one thing they might mean, and it sounds genuinely crazy to you, it also works to say something like:

“Do you have more words you can put around that? I want to understand your view accurately, and I’m guessing that the way I’m interpreting that isn’t what you actually mean. What I’m hearing you say is that you know abortion is a horrific human rights violation—that it unjustly kills an innocent person—and you don’t care. But I’m guessing that’s not what you actually mean—can you help me understand you better?”

As you do this, try not to come across as shocked. Fairly or not, pro-life people have a reputation for being sheltered and pearl-clutching. (Think every homeschool stereotype you’ve ever heard.) One really good goal to have in mind as you dialogue is to disrupt the caricature of pro-lifers that the person you’re talking with has in the back of their head. I don’t mean you shouldn’t be deeply grieved by abortion. And once you’ve built up enough rapport in a conversation, it can sometimes be helpful to be transparent about your grief with a pro-choice person. But get to the point where you know enough about what kinds of things pro-choice people tend to think and say that you’re not shocked when you hear them.

Step 2: Have a Map

As you get more dialogue experience and training, one super helpful thing you’ll get more and more able to contribute to the conversation is actually the smartest pro-choice arguments. That may sound counterintuitive—why would you want to make smarter pro-choice arguments? Doesn’t that lose you debate points or something? 

But one thing that happens a lot in abortion conversations, especially with pro-choice people who haven’t thought deeply about their view, is that they say something fuzzy and inarticulate but know that there’s a smart, articulate thought there that they’re reaching for. Often a pro-life person who knows a little bit more about abortion arguments can easily dunk on the fuzzy thing the pro-choice person just said, but that very rarely changes the pro-choice person’s mind (even if you dunk on it gently and kindly). And it actually shouldn’t change their mind—it’s not because they’re being obstinate and closeminded, it’s because on some level they know there’s a smart argument they were trying to express, and you haven’t answered that smart argument yet. If you can help them get to the smartest version of the argument they’re trying to make, then you have a chance to actually answer it, and a much better shot at helping them change their mind.

It’s like having a map of the abortion dialogue in your head. If someone is trying to talk to you about a city and they say “It’s that one with all the movies,” you could make them feel stupid for saying something vague and inarticulate, but that won’t get you very far. Or, you could helpfully say, “Oh, are you thinking of Los Angeles, or maybe Hollywood?” If you can help a pro-choice person get from the fuzzy thing they actually said to the articulate thing they were trying to think of, you’ll be able to have a much more productive conversation.

Step 3: Learn How to Argue for the Obvious

The final skill you need to be able to respond effectively is arguing for the obvious. (For the specific example of arguing that it matters that fetuses are human beings, one really great tool is the Equal Rights Argument.) Usually, if something feels so obvious to you that you don’t even know how to make an argument for it, that’s actually a gap in your own understanding of your view. If you can fill that gap, you’ll be able to meet pro-choice people where they are in a way that can actually help them understand where you’re coming from, and ultimately change more minds and save more lives.


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Does Your Image Need a Face-Lift?

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Image: Man choosing from multiple face options.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

“Ben Shapiro DESTROYS Socialism”

“Don’t Apologize to the Mob”

Do titles like this sound familiar? Sure, the content inside might be entertaining to those who agree, but if you spoke like that in a conversation, would you convince anyone?

It’s really easy to forget the “relational” part of “relational apologetics,” especially when interacting online. It’s hard to remember that there’s a person on the other end of your comment or tweet. In dialogue, it’s critical to treat others with respect, even to give them a more-than-fair hearing. [Tweet that!] It’s the right thing to do, and it also makes you stand out if you treat people charitably in spite of deep disagreement.

Of course, this is hard to do, especially when you’re passionate and you believe your cause is just. You probably know “that guy” who knows all the arguments—he’s got personhood nailed, he has a whole magazine of bullets to bite for sovereign zone objections, and he’s memorized the entire De Facto Guardian paper—and he can’t wait to destroy the weak points of the opposition! It sounds funny to read, but too many people get excited about fighting for truth and justice against the new American way and forget that people normally have to want to talk to you in order for you to help them change their mind.

I don’t want to spend too much time here arguing against the destroy approach—I’ll just say that it’s somewhat fun but not helpful and please don’t do it—because I want to focus on a different question.

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Debate vs. Dialogue: How Do They Differ?

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John Ferrer debate

John Ferrer debates David Smalley on the problem of evil for The Bible & Beer Consortium.
Photo by Hillary Morgan Ferrer. Used with permission.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes.

Debate is fun for me, but I’m odd like that. I’m an academic and ethics teacher, so I’ve debated abortion formally and informally, in academic settings and elsewhere. The subject arises most every time I’m in a panel discussion, too. In that time, I’ve come to learn that debating is radically different from casual conversation. It’s miles apart from almost every kind of interaction we can have on campus, around the lunch table, walking to class, or hanging out over coffee.

Even with all that debate experience, I’m still a novice when it comes to casual conversations about abortion. I’m a little weird like that. Thanks to Josh, Tim, and the rest of the ERI team, I’m learning how to not be weird. One advantage of my experience, however, is that I can help explain the pitfalls of debating abortion, especially when the other person just wants a dialogue. I know those pitfalls by experience; I’ve tripped across almost all of them. I’m painfully aware that academic debate is entirely different from the street-level, day-to-day conversations regular people have about an issue.

Debate can be incredibly valuable in formal settings, in classes, or on certain websites that facilitate that sort of structured exchange. Most of the time, however, people aren’t looking for a debate, and so we can overpower and ruin a conversation if we try to force it into that mold. I’d like to offer some counsel on how to distinguish debate from dialogue so you can keep your conversations healthy and persuasive.

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Pay Attention to Who Should NOT Be in a Given Conversation

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If you are a part of a dialogue-oriented outreach, you should be paying attention to who should be in a given conversation, and who should not be.

Estimated reading time: 16 minutes.

Josh Brahm (middle) has a conversation with students at Davidson College while Rachel Crawford (left) watches. We don't have a picture of the actual conversation in this article, but it took place in the same spot.

Josh Brahm (middle) talks to students at Davidson College while Rachel Crawford (left) watches. We don’t have a picture of the actual conversation in this article, but it took place in the same spot.

It was our second day of outreach at Davidson College and after having had several conversations, a lull swept over our area of campus while all of the students were in class. I went behind our poll table setup to take a short break with ERI staff member Rachel Crawford who was also sitting back there. We were talking about the dialogues we’d had that day. Two other male volunteers stood behind Rachel talking with us.

While we were talking, a young woman whom I will call “Alice” walked straight up to us to ask us what the point of our outreach was. I responded that we’re trying to help pro-life and pro-choice people to have better conversations with each other, to hear each other, to learn from each other, and hopefully help people get closer to finding truth on the subject. I then asked her, “What do you think about abortion?”

She confidently responded with a statement about being pro-choice, but instead of offering the logical reasons why she believes that, she started describing the abortion experience she had had only five months before. She also shared with us some very personal information about how she didn’t feel like her boyfriend was supportive of her through the process and how she didn’t talk to her friends about it either. She also shared that her parents had abandoned her as a child and that she had been raised by her grandma. She felt very alone in this situation and ultimately one of the staff members of the campus health center had to be the one to drive her to and from the abortion facility. The campus even gave her a loan to pay for the abortion, which she worked through the summer to pay off.

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Don’t Dialogue Like Hamilton OR Aaron Burr

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Hamilton

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

The character of Aaron Burr in Hamilton: An American Musical stands in stark contrast to the title character. Alexander Hamilton is brash, aggressive, tactless, and always reaches for what he wants, while Aaron Burr is polite, careful, and hesitant. When he initially meets Hamilton, Burr encourages him to:

Talk less, smile more, don’t let them know what you’re against or what you’re for.

Sadly, this line reminds me all too well of some well-meaning pro-life people.

Think of it in terms of a dialogue spectrum. On one side of the spectrum, pro-life people dialogue far too aggressively and tactlessly, and, because of that, they don’t usually persuade pro-choice people. Let’s call this “The Hamilton Approach.”

Many agreeable pro-life people wind up on the other end of the spectrum. They say little of consequence in their conversations, they don’t challenge people, and they just focus on being really friendly. Let’s call this “The Aaron Burr Approach.”

The problem is that the people who take the Aaron Burr Approach don’t accomplish much either. Sure, they’re less irritating than people who take the Hamilton Approach, but they don’t persuade anyone of anything because they’re too meek and cautious.