Tag Archives: moral relativism

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Six Bad Arguments from the Pro-Choice “Reversing Roe” Documentary

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Reversing Roe

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.

On September 18th, Netflix released a documentary about abortion called “Reversing Roe.” I watched it, hoping that it was made in an unbiased way, fairly showing both sides of the debate. Unfortunately, as with most documentaries about abortion, this one was edited in a very slanted way, I think to intentionally manipulate the audience. As someone who studies video editing in his spare time (I know, I’m fun, aren’t I?), I recognized lots of subtle editing tricks the filmmakers were using to make people feel comfortable with pro-choice people and uncomfortable with pro-life people.

I decided that the best way for me to equip pro-life advocates to have productive conversations with their pro-choice friends about this documentary was to make a series of videos showing clips from the film and then provide commentary, both on the biased editing tricks as well as responding to the more substantive pro-choice arguments in the film. I spent the next few weeks doing a careful analysis of the film, shooting about 90 minutes of footage of me responding to the documentary, and then working with a new volunteer on editing them into shorter clips to post on YouTube. I’m modeling a video style that’s become very popular lately, where an expert (like a doctor or lawyer) watches clips from a show or movie and then comments about it. I haven’t seen any other pro-life advocates use this style, and I think these videos came out so great that we might do more in the future.

Click on the embedded playlist below to watch the clips for yourself, but I’ll make a few of my points below to give you a sneak peek.

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Reversing Roe: Exposing the Bias

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Reversing Roe: Exposing the Bias

Estimated reading time: 1 minutes.

Josh Brahm analyzes the documentary “Reversing Roe” and exposes the biased editing tricks and responds to the pro-choice arguments made.

Click on the embedded playlist below to watch the video series, or click on the button on the top left of the player to pick and choose which sections to watch.

Videos in the Playlist Above:

  1. Editing Tricks
  2. More Editing Tricks
  3. Gender Bias
  4. Pro-Choice Christians and False Stats
  5. Personhood, Bodily Rights Arguments, and Roe vs. Wade
  6. Did Pro-Lifers Make Up Partial-Birth Abortion?
  7. Do Tax Dollars For Planned Parenthood Help Fund Abortion?
  8. The Worst Pro-Choice Arguments in the Film

Question for pro-choice people: Do you see this documentary as being fair to both sides, or is it just something that in the end might be useful in motivating inactive pro-choice people?

Question for anybody: Should documentaries attempt to be neutral? Tell us in the comments below!

Share this video series with your friends using this link: EqualRightsInstitute.com/ReversingRoe

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What’s Wrong with Saying “Fetus”

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Estimated reading time: 8 minutes.

Discrimination? Microaggression? Propaganda? These are common labels against pro-lifers. Anyone arguing for the rights of the unborn can expect to be characterized as enemies of women, of liberty, and of human rights. Sometimes we can learn from these accusations and pick better terms or listen with more charity. Other times, these labels just don’t fit. Or worse, they are baseless slander.

I would like to suggest that the abortion debate is riddled with a problematic term: “fetus.” At best, this term is a harmless shorthand way to refer to a “human fetus,” “fetal human,” or the “child-in-utero,” and other non-discriminatory terms. At worst, and it’s often used this way, it’s a misleading rhetorical move designed to instill dehumanizing prejudice against the unborn. Either way, we can do better.

Some may call the term “fetus” a “microaggression,” although I’m not a big fan of that concept.[1] My grievance with this term is that it’s typically a subtle but deliberate spin in verbiage intended to relocate the discussion away from any possible implication of human rights. The net effect of that rhetoric, if left unchecked, is a dehumanizing prejudgment about the status of the unborn, as if this “fetus” isn’t really a human being. This use of terms can even be a kind of discrimination. It isn’t discrimination in the sense of breaking a law or violating someone’s civil rights. But it does qualify as verbal discrimination because it is dehumanizing and prejudicial language.

Nevertheless, despite my complaints, I don’t think this term is a huge deal. I’m not trying to make it out to be more than it is. But I do run into this issue often enough that I have to say something about it.

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Circumventing Philosophy Hell

Keeping Your Conversations about Abortion Productive

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Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.

Imagine you’re out hiking with a friend in the beautiful (and fictional) country of Florin, as depicted in The Princess Bride. You’re both clueless tourists but you’ve casually looked at some maps and you think you can handle yourselves. As you’re walking by a ravine, your friend points to a group of trees and says, “Hey, I think if we wander down the ravine and into those trees, we’ll save some time!” You agree, but start to get worried as you notice that what started out as a beautiful forest has turned into a terrifying swamp. Ten minutes later, you are both killed by Rodents of Unusual Size.

Now imagine an alternative scenario. Unlike your tourist friend, you’re a native to Florin, so you know about the parts of the country to avoid, such as the Fire Swamp. When your clueless friend suggests wandering into a dangerous area, you casually redirect him, and you both survive.

A conversation about abortion is surprisingly similar. There are plenty of useful topics to discuss, and plenty of tangents that, while they won’t cause you to get eaten, are really not a good use of time.

Some unhelpful tangents come up regularly because they’re fairly natural responses to some of the arguments I regularly use, and I have learned from experience that some of them should just always be avoided. This post is about a simple but effective way to avoid one in particular.

I am very fond of thought-experiments. I find so much success with them that most of my arguments wind up being backed up by some thought-experiment or another. For instance, if I’m arguing for the personhood of the unborn, I regularly offer the Zoo Shooting:

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Will Smith’s Indefensible Moral Relativism

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Will Smith was recently featured along with several other actors on one of The Hollywood Reporter’s (THR) hour-long roundtable discussions. Not only did Will Smith make a relativistic statement, but the interviewer asked precisely the right question to push back against his view! It’s worth taking a few minutes to analyze what Will Smith said because his view is unfortunately common and it’s helpful to take a close look at the views of those with whom we disagree.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes.

About halfway through the discussion, one of the interviewers asked Will Smith about his recent movie, Concussion. The movie is based on the true story of a Nigerian forensic pathologist named Dr. Bennet Omalu who spent years trying to get NFL leadership to take seriously his research on potentially lethal head injuries from playing football.

Will Smith on The Hollywood Reporter

Screenshot from The Hollywood Reporter video