Top 5 ERI Articles & Podcasts of 2020

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As is our tradition at the end of the year, here is a list of the five most-read articles we wrote this year, as well as the five most-watched/heard podcasts from this year and the three most popular articles that were written before this year. The article analytics all came from Google Analytics.

Our blog received 214,177 unique pageviews from 38,373 unique people this year.

On to the list!

The Five Most Read New Articles This Year:

#5: Let’s Talk About Disagreeing With Each Other

Nicole Hocott at the March for Life in the nation’s capital.

When I read this post from University of Michigan Students for Life club leader Nicole Hocott, I asked her if we could repost it because it so aligns with our ethos at ERI. As Nicole explains, “We all have certain topics that make our blood boil. I want to consider what our response should be when talking with people about them.” I can’t think of a more important year to have published this article!

#4: March for Life Signs: The Bad and the Ugly

Andrew Kaake discusses how we damage the impact of the March for Life when we use incorrect, unclear, harmful, or misleading messaging on our signs.

#3: Responding to the Slogan “Don’t Like Abortion? Don’t Have One!”

Man holding sign with slogan, "If you're against abortion, don't have one."

Picture by Charlotte Cooper source Flickr is licensed under CC By 2.0

This article by our intern Petra Wallenmeyer shows how the common pro-choice slogan “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!” is a red herring that treats abortion like a mere preference instead of a moral issue.

#2: Refuting “Abortion as Self-Defense”

A woman in a self-defense position.

There is a new pro-choice argument that has begun to gain popularity. Many pro-life advocates have not heard of it yet, but to change minds on abortion, you need to know how to both identify and graciously refute it. This article (accompanied by a companion video and a podcast that went even deeper) was a major project for our philosophy team that spanned multiple years.

#1: Is Abortion 14 Times Safer Than Childbirth?

ERI Fellow Dr. John Ferrer wrote what we consider to be the absolute demolition of the common pro-choice claim that “abortion is 14 times safer than childbirth”, showing that it comes from a single, poorly-researched study whose results haven’t been able to be reproduced. We also produced a companion video to the article that summarizes the problems in six minutes.

 

The Five Most Heard Podcast Episodes This Year:

The podcast analytics from combining the episode downloads (which include Spotify) with the YouTube views, since we post both audio and video versions of each podcast. Episodes of the Equipped for Life Podcast were either downloaded or watched 13,912 times this year.

#5: 4 Steps to Taking Your Empathy to the Next Level
I interviewed family therapist Julie Dodson to discuss the “Showing Understanding Skill” technique she’s been trained in. Pro-life advocates can use this skill to grow in their empathy and navigate conversations better, especially the ones that turn to particularly emotional aspects of the abortion debate.


Download MP3 | 1:21:23

#4: Why Do They Always Ask About Rape?
Easily the episode I’m the proudest of from this year. Rachel and I share several observations we’ve made about what is REALLY going on when pro-choice advocates bring up the topic of rape, which may completely change the way you think about those discussions!


Download Audio MP3 | 00:31:56

#3: Scientism and Abortion
Andrew Kaake (with Rachel Crawford editing) wrote three articles on the subject of scientism, the belief that truth, insofar as it exists, is only (or best) discovered by using the scientific method. Rachel and I filmed the video versions of these articles, and then I combined the audio from those videos into one audio podcast episode. When combining the cumulative views from the three videos with the downloads of the audio episode, this series made it the 3rd most watched/listened to podcast episode of 2020.


Download Audio MP3 | 00:28:24

#2: Refuting “Abortion as Self-Defense”
The video mentioned above of our case against a new pro-choice argument, and the audio version of the video that we released on our podcast feed.


Download Audio MP3 | 00:30:26

#1: Our Take on the “AKA Jane Roe” Documentary
After the entire ERI staff watched the “AKA Jane Roe” documentary, we processed our thoughts together and in this nearly unedited discussion, Josh and Rachel offer their analysis of the film.


Download Audio MP3 | 01:03:10

The Three Most Read Articles from Our Archive This Year:

These are articles that were written before 2020, in the order of their continued popularity based on pageviews in 2020.

#3: Fellow Pro-Lifers: Please Stop Sharing This Straw Man Meme

meme

Pro-life people often share the meme above that completely confuses the point of pro-choice bodily autonomy arguments, and therefore commits the strawman fallacy. Make no mistake, the confusion about the Bodily Rights View that is illustrated in this meme is a full-fledged catastrophe for the pro-life movement. One of our supporters recently thanked us for being the only pro-life group she could find that didn’t make this mistake.

#2: Refuting Pro-Choice Memes: Responding to Snark with a Winning Argument

This was our most popular article last year, and it remains very popular. This is a 7,000-word resource with prewritten responses to 12 common categories of pro-choice memes! We created this while preparing for our webinar of the same name that we hosted this year. If you’re a member of the Equipped for Life Course, you can also watch that webinar in our new Webinar Archive which also includes several of our other previous webinars.

#1: Ben Shapiro’s Response to Abortion in the Case of Rape

Ben Shapiro speaking at the 2016 Politicon at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California. Picture by Gage Skidmore and use is allowed through a Creative Commons license.

This has been the most popular archive article for two years in a row! Many of you saw the viral video of Ben Shapiro responding to a woman at a live Q&A event who asked him about abortion in the case of rape. While we have a lot of respect for Shapiro, we do not think that pro-life people should mimic three of the things Shapiro did in their own dialogues.

Those are the lists! Thanks again for following our work this year. I hope it’s been helpful to you as you have potentially life-changing conversations with your pro-choice friends.

Want to see our previous top five posts?

Merry Christmas, and have a happy New Year!

Related Posts:

President

Josh Brahm is the President of Equal Rights Institute, an organization that trains pro-life advocates to think clearly, reason honestly and argue persuasively.

Josh has worked in the pro-life movement since he was 18. A sought-after speaker, Josh has spoken for more than 23,000 people in six countries and in 22 of the 50 states.

Josh’s primary passion is helping pro-life people to be more persuasive when they communicate with pro-choice people. That means ditching faulty rhetoric and tactics and embracing arguments that hold up under philosophical scrutiny.

He has publicly debated leaders from Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL), Georgians for Choice, and one of the leading abortion facilities in Atlanta.

Josh also wants to bring relational apologetics to the pro-life movement. “Some pro-choice people will not change their mind after one conversation on a college campus. Some of them will only change their mind after dozens of conversations with a person they trust in the context of friendship.”

Josh is formerly the host of a globally-heard podcast turned radio/TV show, Life Report. He now hosts the Equipped for Life Podcast. He’s also written dozens of articles for LifeNews.com and the ERI blog.

He directed the first 40 Days for Life campaign in Fresno, resulting in up to 60 lives saved.

Josh has been happily married to his wife, Hannah, for 15 years. They have three sons, Noah, William, and Eli. They live in Charlotte, North Carolina.

David Bereit, the National Director of 40 Days for Life, sums up Josh’s expertise this way: “Josh Brahm is one of the brightest, most articulate, and innovative people in the pro-life movement. His cutting-edge work is helping people think more clearly, communicate more effectively, and — most importantly — be better ambassadors for Christ. I wholeheartedly endorse Josh’s work, and I encourage you to join me in following Josh and getting involved in his work today!”

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