Introducing ERI’s New Mission Statement

Rebecca CarlsonArticles, ERI Updates

ERI’s team recently took some time to dig in and refine our mission statement, and we’re really excited about what we came up with:

For a lot of people who oppose abortion, the last several years have been really discouraging. There are more abortions than ever, abortion conversations are more divisive than ever, and some of the loudest voices calling themselves pro-life are pretty ugly and have done real damage to the movement’s credibility. Some people wonder whether our side’s own methods have made things worse instead of better, and have given up on working toward a more life-affirming culture at all. Others keep trying, but feel like they’re banging their heads against a wall, no one is listening, and the needle isn’t moving. Sometimes it seems like there’s no principled way to make real progress changing hearts and minds about abortion. But there is. At ERI, we’ve seen our fresh approach work over and over again, in thousands of conversations. We’ve seen genuine mutual respect and understanding form between pro-life and pro-choice people, we’ve seen people’s perspectives start to shift, and we’ve seen pro-choice people fully change their minds. We’re on a mission to equip people to cultivate the same kind of loving, culture-transforming conversations.

And here’s the thing: the people we want to equip…are you.  Do you oppose abortion? Do you know any pro-choice people? If you do, you’re ERI’s most effective resource for transforming culture. (And if you think you don’t know any pro-choice people…I bet you’re wrong.)

“Transforming culture” might sound big, lofty, and unattainable. But “culture” is just the sum of a whole bunch of individual hearts and minds—so what it takes to transform culture is just to change a whole bunch of individual hearts and minds. And the best way to change hearts and minds is through one-on-one conversations with real people—even better if they’re people you already have some level of relationship with.

Most of the time, you probably won’t change their mind in one conversation. I’ve had some conversations where someone went from fully pro-choice to fully pro-life all at once, and it’s awesome when it happens. But it’s not the only impact you can have, or even the most important. There are two things that are at least as important that I see happen right in front of me in almost every conversation I have with a pro-choice person—and you can too.

  1. You can dramatically change their perception of pro-life people—breaking down the stereotypes they had in their head by showing them that at least some pro-life people are way more intelligent and loving than they were giving us credit for. That makes it way more possible for them to change their mind about abortion later—it’s a whole lot easier to start believing something if you don’t have a stereotype in your head that everyone who believes that thing is mean and stupid. And even beyond making it more possible for them to become pro-life later, what you will have accomplished right now is a world with a little more kindness, respect, and mutual understanding between people on opposite sides of the abortion issue. That is in and of itself a cultural change well worth celebrating.
  2. Just as importantly, you can forever change how they approach controversial conversations. The media has trained us for years that it’s impossible to discuss politics or religion at the Thanksgiving table—or pretty much anywhere for that matter—without the sky falling. We’ve been trained to believe that screaming matches and broken relationships are the only possible result, so the vast majority of people shy away from genuine dialogue about difficult issues, and those brave enough to try usually only engage in “fight mode” because they’re convinced that’s the only way their voice will ever be heard. But good dialogue habits are contagious. You can show them that there’s a better way—a genuine, loving way—where controversial conversations can end in respect and mutual understanding, without compromising hard truths and arguments. This too helps make it more possible for them to become pro-life in the future, and it’s also well worth it all on its own.

We have a bunch of awesome programs at ERI—our Affiliate Group program for college pro-life clubs and other pro-life groups, our Equipped for Life Academy curriculum for high schoolers, our speaking gigs—things we do and then come back and tell you about. We’re so grateful for your support and encouragement around those things. But the partnership we’re most grateful for is your commitment to fostering smarter, kinder conversations about abortion in your own lives.

We have six people on our staff. Our team has personally had thousands of awesome conversations with pro-choice people over the last decade, but six people can only scale so far. We have hundreds of people in our Affiliate Groups, many of which regularly table on college campuses, and they’ve had 3,372 one-on-one conversations with pro-choice people just since June. But if everyone reading this has just two conversations about abortion with people in your own lives, we’ll blow those numbers out of the water. And better yet, those won’t be tabling conversations with strangers; they’ll be personal conversations with friends and neighbors. More than anything else we at ERI can do, those are the kind of conversations that break down walls, undermine stereotypes, change hearts and minds, and ultimately transform culture. Suddenly the loudest voices calling themselves pro-life become you and me—everyday people, friends and neighbors—whose loving approach will flip the caricature of “those pro-lifers” on its head. 

So we’d love to hear from you. If you’ve had conversations with pro-choice people, how have they gone? What helped? What would help more? If you haven’t had conversations with pro-choice people, what gets in the way? How can we help? Seriously, email me. It might take me a few extra days to reply to everyone, but I would genuinely love all your thoughts. Your relationships with pro-choice friends and neighbors really are ERI’s best way to change hearts and minds, and we want to know how we can be most helpful to you in that.