Three Techniques for the Typical Pro-Life Discussion

In Pro-Life circles January is known as “sanctity of life” month.  This is due to anniversary of Roe vs. Wade.  So with that on my mind, today I want to share (what I think) are the three most important techniques in discussing abortion.

Let’s get to it.

1: The Pro-Choice Corollary

Have you ever heard a person say:

“What you idiots don’t understand is that Pro-Choice doesn’t mean Pro-Abortion.  I wouldn’t have an abortion myself, but that’s me.  I’m not going to take that choice away from other women who need it.”

The phrase “Pro-Choice” is an effective bit of sloganeering.  It is an attempt to take something which people are naturally squeamish about – (namely the practice of abortion) – and allow them to support its legality while washing their hands of the moral implications.

The problem is… it isn’t a neutral position.  Because even if a person doesn’t want to personally get an abortion, supporting the existence of such an industry has moral weight.

For instance, take the plot of the movie “The Island”.  It’s about human clones being grown in a bunker so their organs can be harvested by rich investors… killing them, obviously.  A person who supports the existence of that business (regardless of whether he will buy a clone himself) is saying those clones don’t enjoy the basic human rights afforded to non-clones.

Same goes for abortion.  If you say the abortion business should exist, you’re saying humans don’t have the right to live prior to birth.

So I’ll often respond by saying this:

“Say you had a two year old kid.  No one has the right to hurt or kill that kid – no matter how burdensome, inconvenient, difficult, or unwanted that kid might be.  That’s because we recognize that child’s the right to life.  

By supporting the legality of abortion, you’re saying it should be legal to kill a human prior to birth.  That's what pro-choice means.  It means prior to birth a human has no rights and can be killed.  Can you explain why you support that?”

A question like this removes the façade of neutrality and allows the conversation to proceed to the core issue: Do humans have the right to live prior to birth?



2: Finding a Common “Life” Point

Sometimes you’ll hear a person say:

“No one really knows when life begins.  All it comes down to is personal belief.”

Now… that statement is willful ignorance.  Biologists are not at all confused about when the life of a mammalian organism begins.  I’ve shown this elsewhere.

But rather than bludgeon a person on that point, you may want to take an easier route.  That’s why I often ask if there is a point in the pregnancy where we can agree that we’re looking at a living human being.

“Alright.  Let’s suppose the exact moment of the origin of life is unknown.  But maybe we can choose a point where we’re in agreement.  

At 18 weeks gestation, you have an organism with a full human genetic code which has a beating heart, is moving on her own, has all the human organs, is taking practice breaths, and is responding to stimuli – including sounds.  Can we agree that is human life?”

And if the person agrees, I can then ask:

“Then would be Pro-Life after 18 weeks?”

From there two things will happen.  If the person says, "Sure", I can begin bargaining the person down to 15 weeks and further.

On the other hand, if the person acknowledges that an 18 week-old is a human life, but doesn't think that life should be protected, I say:

"Alright, so now we're talking about a situation where we agree that innocent human beings are being killed for convenience and profit, and you think it should continue under the protection of the law.  Can you explain that?"

3:  The Sincerity Check

The final tactic has to do with the so-called “Hard Cases”.

In 100% of conversations about abortion, the supporter of abortion-legality will eventually (or immediately) appeal to cases of rape, incest, mortally dangerous pregnancies, and grave fetal abnormalities.  Then he will demand you defend your position in those circumstances.

Now, statistically those cases are rare.  In a 2004 survey, the Guttmacher institute put these cases at less than .5% of procured abortions.  So why is the person using those cases as a defense for all abortions?

Most of the time the answer is simple:  As a distraction.  It's to completely avoid having to defend his own position while goading you into defending your position under the worst possible circumstances.  A task which will lead into dozens of side questions, all designed to make you look like a monster.

That’s why, whenever I’m confronted with a person appealing to the “hard cases”, I perform what I call the “sincerity check.”  It goes like this:

“Alright.  Those are important situations to consider, but they are shown to be a rarity when polling is done about why people seek abortions.  So for the time being, let’s bracket those off and look at a more representative case.  

Suppose you have an adult woman who – after a couple missed periods - finds out she is 12 weeks pregnant.  She was not raped.  She is not in any danger.  The child is healthy... but unwanted.  Would you be Pro-Life in that case?”

When the person inevitably answers “No”, you can reply:

“Then it would seem those hard cases you brought up were not the core issue anyway.  Discussing them right now would only be a distraction from the real issue.  Because even outside of those cases, you still don’t think the 12 week old has the right to life.  Can you explain why?”

By doing this, one can avoid going down the rabbit hole with those “worst imaginable cases” when they are brought up as a smoke screen.

Which is every time.


Back to the Foundations:

Those are the three techniques I find myself using the most often.  While I'm doing this I try to remember the goal is to point back to the foundational question:

• What is the being in the pregnant woman's belly?  Is it a human or not?

• Do parents have duties and obligations to their children?

It is a sad thing that we need to try so hard to convince people that the human family ... includes our children.