Josh responds to three pro-choice people who pushed back against our recent video about the Responsibility Objection, one of the pro-life counter-arguments to Judith Jarvis Thomson’s famous violinist thought experiment. Is this pro-life argument a red herring? Did we strawman Thomson? Related Links: One of the Violinist Argument’s Biggest Flaws: … Read More
Humanize the Pro-Life Position—“Come Out” as Pro-Life
The abortion-choice lobby has moved on from just dehumanizing unborn persons. They’ve now shifted their primary focus to dehumanizing pro-life people. It sounds ridiculous for me to say that pro-choice leaders are less concerned about arguing that the unborn aren’t valuable persons. Here’s the thing: unborn humans aren’t visible, and … Read More
Responding to the Slogan “Don’t Like Abortion? Don’t Have One!”
“Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one!” We’ve probably all heard this evergreen slogan before from a pro-choice advocate. There are even shirts and bumper stickers for it. Just like “no uterus, no opinion,” it’s short, it’s snappy, and it can catch new or young pro-life people off-guard in how to … Read More
4 Tips for Changing More Minds
“White House Press Briefing” by The White House is marked with CC PDM 1.0 Estimated reading time: 10 minutes The other day, I saw a clip from an old White House Press Briefing. Reporters were barraging the press secretary with leading questions, reciting statistics that directly challenged the effectiveness of the new policy, and … Read More
What Our Recent Survey Tells Us About Abortion Dialogue
Several months ago, we asked people who follow us and a number of other pro-life groups to take a survey about dialogue habits. We wanted to analyze the ways people approached conversations about abortions on different platforms and see if there were measurable relationships between medium, conversation length, and effectiveness. … Read More
Let’s Talk About Disagreeing With Each Other
Let’s talk about having disagreements for a second. Disagreements about topics that make you so angry you feel like your passion could start a fire, or give you a heart attack. The ones that break your heart, that keep you up at night. Issues that have personally touched people you … Read More
Don’t Blindly Use Statistics in Dialogue
A few years ago, I used to enjoy watching popular political commentators debating or responding to questions from college students after speeches. I gained a lot from the videos because they provided me with new ways to think about complicated political issues. The arguments and responses I watched tended to … Read More
My First Pro-life Display Was a Flop
My first pro-life display wasn’t a complete disaster, but it was pretty close. My goal was to get the ball rolling and build up some campus presence. It bugged me that no one seemed to know my pro-life club existed, and I wanted to change that. One way to do … Read More
How College Students Responded to Questions About 3rd-Trimester Abortions
When I talk with people about abortion it is usually on a college campus at a free speech table that asks the broad question “Should abortion remain legal?” At my most recent visit to campus, I wanted to try something new. I asked people their thoughts specifically about the availability … Read More
Four Lessons From My First Conversation About Abortion
One windy Saturday morning, I was downtown doing a Students for Life display with a few other college students. My dialogue training at that point was minimal, so I wasn’t very hopeful about my ability to help people change their minds. Sure, I knew some general apologetics and how to … Read More