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- [00:01]
A
Oh, you got your ear eye shirt. I do.
- [00:03]
B
No, you're good. Welcome back to the Equip for Life podcast. Josh and Emily here. We have a super fun episode for you today. So excited. Before we start, Josh just pointed this out three seconds before we started, so I feel like I need to point it out to everyone that I am wearing my ear eye shirt today. I'm very proud of it. This is my favorite eer eye shirt special.
- [00:18]
A
Unique.
- [00:20]
B
Do you want to read what it says to everyone for the people that are, like, online?
- [00:23]
A
Yes. Okay. So it says this human, and then it has a plus sign, and then it says, this human pointing to a baby deserve equal protection from violence.
- [00:33]
B
I love this shirt.
- [00:34]
A
This was your awesome pregnancy shirt.
- [00:36]
B
Yes, it was. See, but that's the problem is you can only wear it when you're pregnant.
- [00:40]
A
Josh, Right? Are you pregnant?
- [00:43]
B
Yeah.
- [00:44]
A
No way. Oh, my gosh. She totally set me up. I had no idea.
- [00:49]
B
Yes.
- [00:49]
A
Congratulations. Wait a minute. Do I have any sound effects? I don't think I have. Wait a minute, Do I have all. I have applause and I'm hitting crickets accidentally. Applause. Oh, my gosh. Oh, that's fun. Oh, congratulations.
- [01:04]
B
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes. The rest of the staff doesn't know yet. I've been waiting. Cause Josh was on jury duty. If y' all have been on our email.
- [01:13]
A
Thank you.
- [01:13]
B
So Josh has been out. So I've been sitting around going like, I need to tell the staff. I've told everyone else, but I wanted to wait, and I was gonna tell everyone all at once, but then I was like, well, Josh and I are recording a podcast in the morning before our staff meeting in the afternoon. So I was like, I can tell Josh live on the podcast.
- [01:28]
A
That's amazing.
- [01:30]
B
So, yes, I am pregnant. I am nine weeks pregnant today.
- [01:33]
A
N. How are we doing? How's it going?
- [01:36]
B
I'm very nauseous. It's not going great, to be honest. I am more sick, which is odd. Like, that's not usual that you're more sick with your second. But see, what I've heard is that you're usually the same level of sick or you're a little better. So I don't know. I don't know what's happening. I've got some medicine from the doctor that's been helping a bit. Weirdly. Mornings are better. So I was really glad this podcast recording was in the morning. I know that's not normally how morning sickness works. It's called morning sickness for. For a reason. But I typically get real bad in the evening slash late afternoon. I'm doing okay. I have some, like, lemon things over here that really help if I start feeling nice. So if you see me, like, throw a lemon thing in my mouth, I'm fine. No panicking.
- [02:20]
A
But, like, oh, no panicking.
- [02:22]
B
Just explaining to the audience. You might see me throw a lemon thing in my mouth at some point, which is me just being like, stomach, you're okay. Calm down, we're fine.
- [02:31]
A
This is such a warrior woman. Compared to me, who would be like, this is the slightest bit of nausea, I'm out. We will record later. I'm not doing this right now.
- [02:41]
B
See, the problem is then we probably wouldn't record this for like, eight more
- [02:44]
A
weeks, because that's a good point.
- [02:46]
B
I've been really nauseous for the last three weeks. I started getting nausea at six weeks. And with my last pregnancy, my nausea lasted until week 18. So just doing nothing is not really an option. I have been. If you're one of the people who I have rescheduled a meeting with you, those people do exist. I apologize. This is why I just told you I was sick. This is what the sick was. Some people. I've been able to transition to phone meetings, which work really well. Because the other thing is I do a lot better with my nausea when I'm laying down for some reason. That helps a lot. So most afternoons, I spend pretty much the whole afternoon laying down, but my brain still works and I'm bored if I'm doing nothing. So I've transitioned to some phone meetings, like with some of my affiliate groups. So we just have been talking over the phone. And that works great. I can do that. I feel less nauseous. We're good. So probably going to be doing staff meeting this afternoon while laying down. Just. That's probably what's gonna be happening.
- [03:34]
A
We will have unusual incentive to end on time, if not early.
- [03:39]
B
We usually end on time.
- [03:41]
A
We do. We have amazing staff meetings now.
- [03:43]
B
Oh, my gosh. Yes.
- [03:44]
A
We now have amazing staff meetings. We didn't used to. Now, thanks to your husband, really, more than anything else, we learned how to have amazing staff meetings. We don't have time to get into that. We should get into that at some point.
- [03:55]
B
We totally should. But shout out to my husband, who taught us a meeting method that they use at his work, and we have adapted it to work really well at eri. And now we have so super efficient meetings, all thanks to my husband. So it's great. Well, anyways, that was my big News for the top of this episode.
- [04:10]
A
That's amazing.
- [04:10]
B
By the way, I wanted to say this to both you, Josh, and anyone listening who just mentally maybe had a panic moment. Yes, I do plan to still continue working at ERI when I have baby number two. Someone who is listening thought of that. Yes.
- [04:24]
A
APPLAUSE this is really. I know, I'm just like, everyone is joining me here.
- [04:31]
B
Yes, I do plan to still be here. Some people may know that I cut down my hours when I had my first baby. I used to be full time, now I'm part time. I might have to do slightly fewer hours than I'm currently doing, but it's still gonna be within the realm of the type of output people are used to from me.
- [04:48]
A
No one can tell. I tell this to everybody all the time. Like, what Emily does in part time hours is still more than what everyone else does in full time hours. You can just tell by watching Emily. Like, this is not put on, this is just how Emily is. It'll be fine. But I'm very, very glad that you will still be an integral part of ERI because you really, really have become an integral part of eri and I can't imagine what it would be like without you. So please stay.
- [05:15]
B
Thank you, Josh. I plan to stay. Post baby number two. Obviously something insane could happen, medically or whatever that could change, but like right now, as of the day we're recording this, I do plan to keep working at ERI Post baby number two. We'll just put that out there.
- [05:29]
A
Nice. No one Excellent.
- [05:31]
B
Cool. All right, well, we have a really fun topic for today. I get tagged in these kinds of videos a lot on Instagram and on TikTok. And so I decided it was time for us to do a podcast on it. Yes, people, I mean, people tag me in all sorts of videos, they tag me in the comments, they want me to jump in and debate people and usually I check and see what the video is. If it's actually interesting, I'll make a reply video to it. But most of the time, A, I get tagged in way too many things to actually respond to them all and B, a lot of them aren't fun, frankly, worth my time responding to because I've already got a video responding to that and this person doesn't really seem like they're in a good faith dialogue when they're just a pro choice person trying to make their own content. And so it's not a great use of my time to respond to them, but it's really interesting to keep track of what's going on. But recently, I've been getting more and more of a very particular style of video put out by pro choice people called how to talk to pro life people. Basically, there are some pro choice people out there that are allowed to do. Yes. That are trying to do what I do on my channel of teaching pro life people how to talk to pro choice people. Except they're trying to teach pro choice people how to talk to us.
- [06:36]
A
Oh, that's interesting.
- [06:38]
B
The ones I've seen come in a pretty wide range of advice that I'm like, hey, actually, that's a good piece of advice. That is what you should do if you're trying to convince a pro life person. And some really, really comical, not good advice.
- [06:52]
A
Interesting.
- [06:53]
B
That would not be persuasive. So I've seen a lot of these kinds of videos. I have not watched any of the videos I pulled for today. Interesting. So I have no ide idea what's in this.
- [07:01]
A
We are both live reacting.
- [07:03]
B
I watched about the first 10 seconds of each. Just enough to know that this person was gonna say something interesting as opposed to. Sometimes I get videos where they're like, how to talk to a pro life person. Don't. They're all evil.
- [07:15]
A
And I'm like, oh, my gosh.
- [07:16]
B
Okay, we don't need to react to that. So I pulled ones that I know at least have some substance to them. There is actually a thing they're trying to teach people here that they think is really effective. And so I. Yeah, I'm very fascinated to watch these with you, Josh, and
- [07:29]
A
just get our reactions. Exists. I know. I'm glad there are people out there
- [07:33]
B
there who are thinking critically about how to have good conversation. Even if their advice isn't great. I'm glad they're, like, thinking about it and they're saying, we should be talking across the aisle. We shouldn't be having the attitude, oh, pro lifers are just evil, so don't talk to them in the same way. I don't think pro lifers should have the attitude, pro choice people are just evil, so don't talk to them. That's not good or productive.
- [07:51]
A
Yeah.
- [07:52]
B
So are we ready?
- [07:53]
A
We are so ready.
- [07:54]
B
All right, so here's the first video before I click play, for those of you that are listening, I just want to read the comment on the screen that this woman is responding to. So she's making a video responding to this question from someone named Rob Tobias. He said, is there a best go to argument you recommend when trying to convince an Anti choice person to reconsider. My misguided loved ones seem too entrenched. So here is this lady's reply to that.
- [08:19]
C
Okay, so this is the million dollar question. And I get asked this a lot. And there's been a lot of like political money, time and energy spent trying to figure out how you change people's minds on abortion. So I can tell you what the studies show, right? Like what we know works research wise and what I found from my own experience. Studies show that people are more likely to vote pro choice if they know someone who's had an abortion, right? If they know a friend, family member, community member, whatever. And what is even more effective, my dog is here, is not just if that person has said, oh, I've had an abortion, but if they've really shared their abortion experience with them. There's been lots of studies on what we call abortion storytelling. And so if you're sitting down and you're having a conversation and you're really sharing your experience, that actually makes a tremendous impact in terms of votes. It may not mean that that person, you know, starts identifying as pro choice, but it does make a difference at the ballot box, which is incredibly, incredibly important. Right. And by the way, this is part of the reason that we're seeing Republicans lose so badly right now. Because since Roe was overturned, so many people are sharing their stories, these horror stories are coming out. They're sharing their abortion experiences and they're sharing their experiences of the impact of abortion bans. And when people see terrible things happening to folks that they care about, folks in their community, folks in their state, that makes a difference.
- [09:45]
B
I think just before she move on to our next point. Yeah, I agree with so much of what she just said. I think this is something that we in ERI have been talking about. The fact that especially stories where a woman's life is at risk and the media is claiming rightfully or wrongfully, that she wasn't able to get an abortion and that's what caused her death. That's really the most powerful media tool to convincing people that they should be voting pro choice because even if they're personally pro life, we need to have abortion available because otherwise these women are gonna die. I don't think there's a more strong emotional pull for someone to vote pro choice as that.
- [10:20]
A
Yeah, I love all that. I had so much common ground with so many of the things that she was saying that I couldn't like, write them all down. I couldn't even list. I was like, I agree with probably like 80% of this or something like that. The one kind of maybe meteor question that I was thinking about so far far was this idea that she's like, look, it's really powerful. If post abortive people not only tell their friends that they're post abortive, like not just sort of out themselves, if you will, but actually share details of their story, like actually kind of get into what their experience was and that it makes this difference on people. They're going to be feeling more empathy and things like that. And I wondered, does that apply also the other direction? I sometimes speak at pregnancy center banquets, the good pregnancy centers that are really helping people and have good quality care. Sometimes before or I speak doing like the keynote, they'll usually have the director or maybe a board member do a little like update, here's what's going on. And they'll also have a testimony. And then a lot of times that testimonial is going to be from someone who is post abortive kind of sharing their story. And I wonder, does them getting into the details of their story from this new perspective, this fixed perspective of regretting their abortion, is that having this impact on people in the way that this one on one conversation is? Because I suspect that they're not exactly the same.
- [11:35]
B
Yeah, I think you're right that they're not exactly the same. I mean, when it's someone in your life that you know who was affected by abortion, I think that's always going to be more powerful to you than a testimony from a person you don't know. But I do think it works the other way as well when it's a person, you know, like if you are someone who is post abortive and you do regret your abortion, or you had a negative experience with it in some way or something like that, and you are comfortable sharing that in your circle as that kind of personal conversation, which is really what she's talking about here. I think that makes a difference on the people around you. I mean, as much as logic and arguments is really important. We are human and we are affected emotionally by the stories of other humans and what they go through. And I think she is very correct that when people hear stories about why a particular woman felt that she needed an abortion and how it really helped her, that's going to sway people to be more pro choice. And if you hear a story from a woman who had a negative abortion experience, and then maybe if she had another experience with unplanned pregnancy afterwards where she went through with that Pregnancy. And it was really, really positive. Those kinds of stories sway people to be more pro life. We are persuaded by stories we shouldn't be like, it's not a logic, it's not an argument. But we are persuaded by real people. I think that's very accurate. And there's an important part of persuasion that is always going to involve storytelling and rhetoric and being able to tap into people's emotions.
- [12:59]
A
When someone's telling me a powerful story and something that is making me feel all the empathy, feelings I'm trying to figure out, like, what can I learn from this story that could potentially be like a universally true thing? Is there evidence from this? Like, oh, they kind of like, where there's smoke, there's fire. There are really powerful anecdotes out there that have really strong evidence of discrimination from law enforcement or various different kinds of things. And people can be like, okay, is this like a systemic thing or is this just an individual, bad racist cop kind of a thing? And so we don't want to make the mistake of treating anecdotes as evidence because they're not. But I also want to learn from them. There is truth and important truth that we can learn from stories, even if it's not factual. It's really important for me to understand about this person's experience and about what they're feeling. And especially in areas where I can't understand fully because I haven't had the same experiences, I could just, if nothing else, want to try to learn from them in that.
- [13:56]
B
Yeah, I think that is so wise. And it's important to recognize in each of us that we do, as humans, I think, have a tendency to want to generalize when we hear a story of one particular situation that happened. Our natural brain inclination is to assume that all situations are like this. That every single woman regrets her abortion, or on the pro cherry side, that every single woman must have an amazing experience with abortion and it's always the right decision for her. We all naturally do that and that's okay. Like, that's how our brains are wired. But we need to recognize that and fight that impulse.
- [14:28]
A
Yeah.
- [14:29]
B
While also not rejecting the story and saying, well, there's nothing for me to learn from this and I'm just going to ignore it. Like, we do have to really deeply listen and understand this person's experience while recognizing that we shouldn't generalize from it. And that's a hard line to walk. Yes, we could sit on that for a long time. Let's keep going. What else does this lady have to say we'll keep going.
- [14:50]
C
My own experience, like outside of studies, is that what tends to work really well is asking a lot of questions. Right. When we have political conversations, especially about feminism, about abortion, we tend to do this. It can be really difficult when someone is saying something that you know is just completely untrue to not immediately just be like, you're wrong. That's not true. What are you talking about? Right, like people get heated and so if you want to have a fight, that's fine. I like getting in fights too sometimes. But if you want to change someone's mind, we have to do something different. And asking questions is really, really great. And what I mean by that is if you know someone who is anti abortion, pro life, whatever they call themselves, ask, so how did you come to that? Like, why do you believe that? When did that start for you?
- [15:35]
B
I love that so much.
- [15:36]
C
Tell me more. Right. Like just continually asking more and more questions.
- [15:42]
A
Okay. There is nothing wrong with those questions. There is not an iota of leadingness or bad faith in there at all. Like these are the questions that we should be asking them. Wrong with these questions. These are great.
- [15:55]
B
Yeah, they're fantastic. The only thing I would say is sometimes I've seen because I tell pro life people to ask kind of the opposite of all those questions when they're talking to pro choice person. And sometimes I run into the pro life person who does in fact ask too many questions. It's rare, but it can happen. It's the one thing to watch about yourself is are you turning this into an interrogation? Does the person feeling like you are investigating them?
- [16:16]
A
This was a thing that I added to our seminar, I think because I'd seen too much too many of these things. At Outreach, everyone's been teaching clarification questions for a long time. I started saying like, hey, look, but you can do this too far. If you make them feel like they're on the witness stand, you're like the prosecutor.
- [16:31]
B
Not good.
- [16:31]
A
Then this is not good. You need to actually balance this out. Put some cards on the table and show part of yourself so that they don't feel like you're just like trying to like figure out all of their different things and map it out so then you can finish them off in one combo move. It's a balancing act and you kind of learn that as you do a lot of reps, as you know. But you can't ask way too many questions and especially too many back to back.
- [16:55]
B
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All right. Alright, let's Keep going.
- [16:58]
C
That does a couple of things that are really important. The first thing it does is it makes that person feel listened to. Right. Ultimately, we all want to be heard. We all want to be listened to. And people are more likely to take your opinion and your beliefs seriously if they feel like you give a shit about what they think. Right. If you're asking them questions and you're making clear that you actually care about what they believe, they're going to be in a more open place to hear from you. The second thing that it does is give you a sense of when you can find an entry point to put your belief in there, to find common ground. So the more questions you're asking, you're gonna come to a point where it's like, oh, well, it sounds like we both really care about such and such. What do you think about this?
- [17:44]
B
Is she just giving an ERI seminar right now?
- [17:46]
A
This is so good.
- [17:47]
B
This is like what I have said so many times. This is amazing.
- [17:51]
A
The more they talk, you're gonna hopefully have a lot of common ground in there. Of course, at some point there's probably gonna be something you agree with that maybe you can kind of tag in on and respond to, but you're going to be trying to do a lot of common ground. Like, yes, that's exactly what's going on. Oh, I love this. This is amazing.
- [18:05]
C
Right? The more someone talks, the more you're going to find entry points for agreement, inserting your opinion, inserting a fact, saying, oh, I'm really interested to hear that you care about this. Have you heard about this study or this story or whatever it is. All that said, I also don't believe in talking to brick walls. Right? And so, so if you are confronted with a person who actually has no interest in really hearing you, who's just trolling you, who's just trying to get a rise out of you, reconsider having that conversation. I say often that you should be treating your activist energy like a precious resource. Right? Like really think about how you want to.
- [18:44]
B
I really like that quote.
- [18:45]
A
Oh my gosh, that is so good.
- [18:47]
B
You need to treat your activist energy as a precious resource.
- [18:52]
A
Yes.
- [18:52]
B
Favorite quote from a pro choice person.
- [18:54]
A
Oh my goodness, that is so good. It's so true across the board because
- [18:59]
C
this work is hard and it can take a lot out of you emotionally, time wise, everything else. But we also, all of us have people in our lives that we care about, that we think are empathetic and kind and caring people, and that maybe if they knew a Little bit more. They might consider again, maybe not identifying as pro choice, but maybe at the ballot box making the right decision. The last thing, and this has been a longer video and honestly, this is actually the short answer to this question. This is why I do the work that I do. Because people will ask me, like, don't you feel sometimes like you're preaching to the choir with my columns or the work that I'm doing? And yeah, that's okay though, because I don't necessarily think that someone is going to read my column who's anti abortion and change their mind. It's happened, but not often. What I do think, though, is that the work that I'm doing can inform and arm people who are pro choice who can then go on to the people in their own communities and their own lives and help to change their minds. Like that is where that change is going to happen. So again, sorry that it was a long video. It is honestly the short answer. Hopefully the cute dog mix up for how long this was.
- [20:15]
A
This is so good. Okay, I do have a couple of thoughts. I wanted to start with where she ends, because this is actually finally where I think we branch off the most is the way that. Do we know her name?
- [20:28]
B
Her name is Jessica Valenti.
- [20:30]
A
So the way Jessica is talking at the end at kind of like this meta level is the way I think most pro life apologists talk or would talk about the meta level of apologetics of what they're trying to get people to do. A lot of Christian apologists talk like this. This is a way that we specifically talk different. And this has been part of our DNA from the beginning. And we don't harp on this a lot because we don't want to come across too much like we're trying to like criticize our colleagues whom we love and respect. But this is just an area of respectful disagreement. Is a lot of times. I just watched Randall Rouser this morning, had a video where he's kind of actually talking about this, that there's a lot of times when or doing apologetics work, it is so much about defending a view. It is specifically about, okay, if you're a pro life apologist, you are here to defend the pro life view. That is your job. We're going to try to come up with what are the different kinds of potential effective ways to respond to all of these different things. Randy Alcorn has a book. It's like, here's like a bunch of different responses to every single pro choice argument in chronological order. Is it the best Way to respond. Usually, no. But like, that's apologetic, right? We are trying to do philosophy. We are trying to encourage people, not just pro life people, but pro tools people too, to do philosophy. And that's a little bit different. Philosophy is about trying to find truth. We're not coming specifically from, like, a major bias where we're trying to make sure that at the end of the day, we're still defending the pro life view. We are trying to think. Well, we are trying to think as well as we can and think about the pro choice people who are thinking as well as they can. And I use the analogy a rising tide raises all ships all the time, with donors, every single donor meeting. I probably say this because I am not just trying to help pro lifers, we are trying to help people have better conversations about one of the hardest topics to have conversations about. Pro life People get sometimes a little bit nervous when we go out and speak, Emily, because we are sometimes like, here's some bad pro life arguments. Here's some ways that you can respond. It's like, no, I want to elevate the whole conversation. I want us all having better conversations. Are there weak pro choice arguments? Yes, and we can talk about those too. But there are also weak pro pro life arguments. And a lot of times pro lifers will come to us afterwards and be like, thank you. If I just heard that from someone 10, 20 years ago, it would have changed my mind then. I've just never heard anyone say this because they've been hearing apologists. They've been listening to apologists their entire career and not philosophers. Anyway, that is, I think, the main difference in our approach.
- [23:02]
B
Yeah, and I love that you say sometimes pro life people come up to us. Sometimes pro choice people come up to me after my speeches and I've done my bodily autonomy talk. I do. On college campuses, we talk about the pro choice arguments. We then talk about some bad pro life responses to them. And then I actually go and respond in a really powerful way. And pro choice people will come up to me and talk about how the moment that I gained their respect was the moment that I brought up really dumb pro life arguments and like, shut them down and be like, this is a horrible way to respond. This does not deal with it. And the pro choice people in the audience, that's when they bought into me and they were like, oh, she's not what I expected. And then they could listen to my really smart pro life argument response. And then they're persuaded by it, but they actually started listening because I was willing to criticize my own side and I was willing to say sometimes pro lifers say dumb things. Here's an example of a really dumb thing. Please don't say this.
- [23:53]
A
Here's what's really interesting about that is I know that Emily is starting every one of those bodily autonomy talks the same way I start my bodily autonomy talks, which is like three to five minutes of epic common ground and selfish signaling rant.
- [24:10]
B
Like it's a rant about.
- [24:11]
A
Yes, there's some ranting. There's a dig at Ben Shapiro in there to pick depending on whether you're doing it exactly the way I do.
- [24:18]
B
Oh, I do. I did Ben Shapiro in it.
- [24:20]
A
Nice. So there's common ground with pro choice people in there. And like, for a lot of pro choice people, we have them at that point. Yes, the protest signs sort of drop. Their defenses are down, but they actually have them.
- [24:30]
B
But then they mean electionally in the middle. It becomes this, like, I think the transition to me is this. At the beginning, they drop their sign because they're like, she is not what I expected. What the heck is going on? They're kind of like confused and they think I'm cool and I'm not what they expected. And then in the middle is when they respect me intellectually because they're like, oh, she's very open minded, very intellectually honest, willing to call out her own side. And so it's almost like, I think a two part flip that happens at the beginning, in the middle. I don't know. I interrupted you, Sorry.
- [25:01]
A
No, it's at least plausible that there's some sub segment of pro choice people who by the end of your talk, they like you, they want to hang out with you for an hour or two and do Q and A. Like, sometimes happens. That happens. But maybe they weren't there after the intro, but they got there after you sharing some faulty pro life arguments. And it just did something that the intro didn't do. That's interesting to me. Okay, I got two other, like, really quick thoughts about other things that Jessica said before, and I want to hear anything else that you have, but just something she said early on that's also a little bit different than the way that we communicate is I'm going to probably misquit a little and paraphrase a little bit. But you're sort of like talking to pro choice people. It's like, look, if you're talking to pro life people and you want to help them figure out the things that you know to be true, here's like some effective tips techniques and again, we want to encourage people to be open minded. I almost never use the phrase I know this to be true because I feel like there are very, very few things that I absolutely 100% know to be true besides my existence. And two plus two is four. In a base 10 system, there's not that many things. A yellow flag goes up anytime I hear someone use the word no in that way. There's this amazing quote from 12ingerman. I'm probably thinking about juries all the time because I was just on a jury for a really long time. The remake of both movies are really, really excellent.
- [26:22]
B
I've never seen the rem I know the classic now you've convinced me I need to watch the remake because we
- [26:27]
A
were talking about this dozen rock solid actors being amazing. There's this moment in the remake where one of the more frustrated jurors by the end of this who just wishes this had all been over a long time ago exclaims, how does he know these things? How does he know these things? As he's just communicating these theories, these counterfactuals, maybe this other thing. How does he know these things? I just think of that every time. Okay, when you say the word no, what is it that we can't? And no, but tons of common ground. Last thing I'll say about this video is what she said in the middle about brick walls. And I also want to say there are pro life trolls in brick walls that are absolutely not worth your time or your activist energy. This happens on both sides.
- [27:07]
B
Brick walls. Yep.
- [27:09]
A
There are pro choice brick walls. And I've got a blog post I wrote forever ago that we've linked to dozens of times because it is just something that I always want to be reminding people about. It's like a personal emotional health kind of a thing. There are some times that you should end an un productive conversation. Here are some of those cases. Here's at least one or two stories giving some examples of how I would do that. But you are absolutely not obligated to spend as much time with someone as they are willing to spend with you. If they're just attacking you, not listening, clearly close minded have an agenda. There are situations where you shouldn't. It's not worth having those conversations 100%.
- [27:47]
B
Having the guts to end that and be like it's okay, this person is not worth my time I think is the hardest part. But it is necessary for you to save that precious resource. My favorite thing that she said your Activist energy is a precious resource and treat it so treat it like that. Are we ready for the second one?
- [28:03]
A
I am ready.
- [28:04]
B
All right. This is Aaron and this one's much shorter. Just a minute. And what it says on the screen for our audio listeners is how I discuss abortion with people who think differently than me on this important issue. Here we go.
- [28:17]
D
I have a lot of pro life people in my life and I never shy away from the conversation around why abortion is necessary and it's also necessary to keep abortion legal and safe. I always remove my emotion from this because my stance on abortion is based in rooted in science. My question is always when do you think the first abortion ever happened? And then the wheels start spinning and people realize that abortion has been happening since the beginning of time. Since women could first conceive a pregnancy. Once that starts to marinate in a person's brain a little bit, I just then bring up the fact that outlawing abortion is not going to stop abortion. It's just going to force women to have unsafe abortions. All the while I stay calm because I know that my emotions aren't going to change the way that they feel. But it gives me an opportunity to present some evidence based ways we could prevent unintended pregnancies and thereby prevent abortions in some cases.
- [29:14]
B
Interesting. I'm curious, Josh. I really want to like Steel man what she's saying, but I've heard this before and I'm always fascinated by the pro choice move in a conversation to bring up the fact that abortions have been happening since the beginning of time. Like I have heard pro choice people say that before. It gets brought up in my comments all the time. And that one I really struggle to understand where they think that is persuasive. I get the back alley abortions thing. We can talk about that in a second. Abortions will only happen dangerously. I get why they think that's persuasive. I don't get why they think bringing it up that it's been happening since the beginning of time is persuasive. Because I could say the same thing about a whole heck of a lot of human rights violations that have been going on since the beginning of time that they agree are human rights violations
- [29:55]
A
that also should be against the law.
- [29:57]
B
That also should be against the law even though they've been happening since the beginning of time. So help me. Do you have any thoughts what is going on that you think that's persuasive? Because I really struggle with that one.
- [30:05]
A
No, that's a good Question. And you're right. I think this is sort of like the youe're a Man thing where a lot of times there's a version of this argument that's sort of more silly and then there's like a maybe a nuanced version. The Steel man that I heard or the key to Steel Manning. Her argument is at the very end of her video in the sense that I think she's basically saying, because abortion has always happened, therefore even if you were able to make it against the law, that's not going to change anything. It's not as much as he's making the moral argument that a lot of preachers people make, which is sort of like has always been going on. Who are you to judge what's always been going on? And this is like, okay, come on. I think she's trying to say something that's more interesting, which is like, look, you could maybe change the laws if you get enough political power, but that's not going to stop abortion because abortions have been going on since basically the beginning of time. It has been illegal in some places before. Right.
- [30:56]
B
And that stopped it from occurring.
- [30:58]
A
And that didn't stop it from occurring. That would have added to the argument. But I think that's the Steelman version.
- [31:03]
B
Yeah, I think that's a much stronger version of what she's trying to say. Still obviously has some problems that we can talk about, but okay, that makes more sense. She's not trying to make the kind of moral claim because it's been happening forever. Obviously it's fine. Which I have genuinely heard some pro choice people do and been confused by. This makes much more sense. She's saying you can't stop it, it's inevitable, basically. Got it. Do we want to get into why that's a bad argument?
- [31:28]
A
Yeah.
- [31:29]
B
At least just for like a hot second.
- [31:31]
A
If you were on MSNBC right now, Emily, we will link in the description just in case you haven't seen it. If you run MSNBC and got asked the Steel Manny version, just like, look, it's always been going on. So even if you make it illegal in some places, it's going to keep on happening anyway. How would you respond?
- [31:49]
B
So I would do two things and we should also link. I have a TikTok doing this exact thing. So I'll put that in there. I think there's two helpful things to bring up. Number one, the fact that having abortion restrictions does in fact reduce abortions dramatically. And number two, talking about why, even if it's not gonna get Rid of all of them. It is still right to make human rights violations illegal. So if we talk about the abortion restrictions part for a second, there are some amazing studies on this that I was alerted to by our friends at Secular Pro Life who have the best research on everything. By the way, if you're looking for like a study to prove something, go to Secular Pro Life's site and they just have them all linked. And it's amazing. Yeah, so we have so many studies, this is amazing. From even before Roe was overturned, before you were even allowed to like outlaw abortion in a state. There are studies saying that restricting abortion in any way, like the hallway size stuff, anything you do does decrease the rate of abortions happening there. Because what those studies will do is they'll actually measure the birth rate in a particular area. They don't try to measure the abortion rate because it's true that somebody could have a secret abortion abortion that's very possible and it wouldn't get counted. But you can't have a secret birth. That doesn't really work. So they'll measure the birth rate in an area and then some sort of abortion restriction goes into place. And then they measure the birth rate and what happens afterwards. And they find that universally, anytime there is any sort of abortion restriction that's put into place, the birth rate goes up afterwards. One of my favorite studies of this, this was a post Dobbs happening study, but they were looking specifically in Texas and they were trying to figure out like what happened when we made abortion illegal and they tried to kind obfuscate what we were talking about. So in the whole study they refer to it as uib. Having abortion restrictions in place dramatically increases uib. UIB stands for Unintended Birth. So my point is there is a lot of pro choice research, which is why they want to get rid of the abortion restriction. Because not only is there a case where there are some women who are dying and all those things, and we want to make sure that we have abortion available in our state, but also it is causing women who didn't want to have a birth to have a birth. Because shockingly, when you make something illegal, a lot fewer people do it right.
- [33:59]
A
And that there are just some people who will follow the law. They will not agree with it morally at all, but they will follow the law. Which you also saw when Roe v. Wade got passed because abortions went way up. They were tracking illegal abortions to the best that they could. And abortions did go up after Roe, indicating there were some people that were morally Willing to have abortions, but were not willing to do it illegally.
- [34:21]
B
Yeah. Or they were only willing to do it when it was more accessible to them. They wanted to have an abortion, but the level of accessibility to them wasn't worth the risk. Yes. Or worth the money to travel or worth the whatever. If it's less accessible and it's against the law, maybe I don't do it because it's against the law and I'm gonna follow the law. Maybe I don't do it because it's just a lot harder for me to make it happen. And that's not quite worth it for me. So I think there's two reasons there. So the first thing I would do is talk about some of those studies. The second thing I would do is talk about how it is really tragic. Like we need to recognize the fact that even with that being the case, the unintended birth rate is going to go up. There's going to be a lot of women that choose not to have an abortion. There will always be some. She's not wrong about that. There will always be some small percentage of women. I think, perchance, people are very wrong that it's like the same number of women as before having an abortion, but there will be some small percentage of women that are.
- [35:13]
A
I don't even know if it's small. It might be in the middle. I might meet you in the middle.
- [35:17]
B
Okay. There is some percentage of women. It's not here, but it's not zero either. Yeah, there is some non zero number. And that matters. That matters a lot.
- [35:26]
A
It really matters.
- [35:27]
B
Those women are going to do something inherently dangerous to themselves because they're that desperate. And like that is such a sign that our society is not caring for those women. Well, that there are not sufficient resources for that. Like the fact that anyone would feel that desperate to do something dangerous to themselves means that we aren't loving them. Well, we aren't getting them the resources they need. And so that is horrible and tragic and we gotta figure out how to fix that. But even with that being the case, the phrase I usually use is hold the law hostage because of citizens who are threatening to hurt themselves. Like, if I'm right, and I might not be, we can totally talk about this. But if I'm right, that abortion is, is a human rights violation. If it's killing an innocent human, then that's not the kind of thing that we can just keep legal in order to make it safer for people to keep doing it. Like, we wouldn't do that. To any other human rights violation. So if I'm right about what abortion is, we need to make sure that there is no woman out there who is feeling that desperate, who doesn't have the resources and just can't do this. And so she's willing to do something dangerous like we gotta fix. But we also can't hold the law hostage and say we are not going to make a human rights violation illegal. We are gonna keep it legal just so people can keep doing that human rights violation safely. Like we would never do that. That doesn't make sense.
- [36:58]
A
I wanna compliment Aaron and then I've got a question for you about something she said, but I love at the very top, Aaron says that she has lots of pro life friends. So just right off the top, uh huh. Good job. That's great. Because there's a lot of people who don't have friends who are different from them. At least not like a plurality of them, a plethora of them, if you will. I'm interested. Emily, what did you think? What was your reaction to Erin saying that she specifically never shies away from this conversation when it comes up with her pro life friends? Because a lot of times I'm in judgment call mode, right? I'm in. Every conversation is very difficult, even the beginning. Someone might say something that's like, oh yeah, I could either follow up on that or I could just let it go. These situations, opportunities as some would call them, happen a lot and sometimes I follow up and sometimes I let it go by for various contextual reasons in the moment. These are case by case things. But I get the sense that Aaron wouldn't sometimes just decide, you know what, based on all the things going on right now with this person and me and like, whatever, yeah, I'm gonna like not what was your now I feel like I've led you now I've just kind of like given my answer.
- [38:05]
B
I was really just trying to ask the question. I don't engage in a conversation with abortion every single time I could like, I think it is always a judgment call about where I'm at that day, where this person is at that day, how good of a relationship I have this person. How likely am I to be able to have this conversation in the future with this person? Like there's a whole bunch of questions that are going through my head in that split second before I'm deciding do I say something or do I let that one go? I don't think it is probably healthy. Well, back to our last girl, Jessica's quote About your activist energy is a precious resource. I don't think think it is probably healthy to say something every single time that you could about abortion. Unless you're a person who like this comes up for you in your friend group once a year or something or
- [38:45]
A
you have a really big tank.
- [38:47]
B
Or you have a really big tank, right? Totally.
- [38:49]
A
I got your enneagram eights out there. They're ready.
- [38:53]
B
I think it's possible but I think it is unlikely that it is healthy to say something every single time it comes up. Especially in today's world where abortion comes up in the news a lot lot and on social media a lot. Especially if we're talking about social media if the requirement and obviously most people are not me, my social media is full of abortion. But I think for a lot of people their social media if you follow, even if you just follow us you're still going to get fed algorithm stuff. That's other abortion related things. If the rule was every single time an abortion thing comes across your feed you have to say something, you have to comment, you have to whatever that would be wildly unhealthy. Please, please don't do that.
- [39:31]
A
I want to push this one level deeper. I want to play Erin. I'm going to tell you the way that I think Erin might counter you because I want to hear your response. I think Erin might. I'm not trying to put words in Aaron's. I don't know anything about Aaron. I'm just saying Aaron maybe would say that for her that the desperation is coming from a place of look, there are actually states now that are making abortion illegal or trying to make abortion illegal. Some are. Maybe there was a time when that was the case but now she might feel like we have to be talking about this now because people's opinions about about abortion matter at a level post Dobbs that they didn't pre Dobbs. How would you react to her if she kind of responded that way?
- [40:11]
B
Yeah, I think I would have a lot of common ground with that and I would say I think that's why I'm spending so much of my time trying to convince pro life people to talk about this more and why it makes sense that you should be spending your time trying to get pro choice people to talk about this more. But more to me doesn't mean all the time because if you're burned out out of talking about this then you're. I don't want to say you're no good to the movement at all but like if you are talking about it so, so, so much that you're, like, burned out and you can't do this anymore, then you're not going to be helpful to the pro life movement or the pro choice movement, you know, whichever movement you're in, if I'm talking to Aaron. So you do need to be precious about your activist energy now in times of, quote, desperation for your particular side, which I believe we are also in. We are in a time that's very serious where states are wildly expanding abortion, these ballot initiatives are passing, and we're making states more pro choice. Like, we are also in what I would call a desperation situation. And that means I need to be pushing people to go out of their comfort zone and talk about it more. But that still doesn't mean you should be talking about it every single time. I think there's a big difference.
- [41:10]
A
I think that we should be talking about it more because we basically agree with all of these pro choice videos that are saying you should be having these conversations. I mean, we're basically all coming from that place. That's great. Okay, my only last two thoughts on the Aaron video. One, she said a thing about how she likes to talk to people about how the pro choice position is rooted in science. And I'll just say I say this to pro life and pro choice people both, but I end up having to say this to pro lifers a lot, just for contextual reasons. Again, this is not primarily a science question. I kind of wish it were.
- [41:41]
B
That would be a lot easier.
- [41:42]
A
That would be easier. We could just do the embryology textbook thing. Regardless, I think this is primarily a philosophical question. We're trying to figure out is the entity that is killed in an abortion, does it have intrinsic value or not? In the same way that Erin and Jessica and you and I do, like, we all have value. So we're trying to figure that philosophical question. And then there's this other philosophical question that could skirt around that one about whether a woman's bodily autonomy is such that it doesn't really matter what is going on with the baby, morally, philosophically, metaphysically, because it's her body and she can do what she wants. These are really important and difficult, complicated, nuanced conversations, but they are ultimately more philosophical than they are scientific. I'm not saying there is no science that gets into this thing.
- [42:27]
B
There is. Right? Right.
- [42:28]
A
There is. And I will say I should tell you this. I'm gonna publicly say, here's where I've changed my mind a bit on this. So my wife's been going through nursing school. She is like practically done with her rn. I will tell you. Hannah was shocked by the level of ignorance. I don't mean in a negative way or making fun in a pejorative way, just the level of, just straight up, just lack of knowledge about pregnancy and fetal development from literally everyone in her class who had not already had had a baby. That was the difference maker. It was not. Are they like college students or not? It's not. Are these like intellectuals who are wanting to do medical stuff or not? Because that's in my head, I'm like, okay, well all these people clearly know all of the basics at this point. And she's like, no, a bunch of her fellow students did not know what a placenta was. A lot of her students did not know basic fetal development stuff, basic labor and delivery stuff. So look, a lot of our material has come from our work on college campuses, talking with college students. And the reason why Monica and I will every year basically have this public little conversation about how our stuff is kind of geared more towards the intellectuals. And she's like, we do sometimes deal with people who don't know when life begins kind of a thing. And I'm just saying I have become more convinced that the people who actually understand all of this stuff at the basic facts, at the same level that we have this shared commonality, this agreed common ground of the basic facts that we don't need to go into, which is basically the way that I've functioned for a lot I've been been wrong. I need to assume that people basically, and this is how they teach doctors, you just treat everybody like they're at the fifth grade level and some are, and some are more. And that's fine, you can adjust. But like a lot of people just no surprising. So anyway, I just want to say this is mainly philosophical thing. It's not mainly a science thing. But there is a lot of confusion. But I do want to say there's something I like that she said. I think a lot of pro lifers do get triggered by this and I don't think that that they should be. Aaron says we should be talking to pro lifers about evidence based ways to prevent pregnancies. Amen to that. That is fine. That is a good thing. That is not bad. Now pro lifers won't always agree with all of the things that pro choice people will list as all of the different ways to prevent pregnancy. If you are Catholic, you are just not going to end up at the same level of common ground that they want you to be on how much we should be giving out birth control. There's like a theological major differences there, but there is common ground. I remember speaking to a school in Canada. It was the first school in like seven and three days. So I just gotten into town, literally just like drove up the border. I've had lunch, I've run in for this first talk. I haven't even talked to anyone else yet. And I'm doing Q and A. There's hundreds of them in here. And the very first question is, what do you think about birth control and whether or not access to birth control can prevent unintended pregnancies. I was like, oh, I totally think access to birth control sometimes events unintended pregnancies. This kid, I gotta tell you, like I said more after that I went into, you know, here's differences and all these different things. But he was stunned. He was ready for bear. He was like, you can see it on his face. He's like waiting for me to say no. I don't think there's any corollary. No, he was right. As soon as I was like, oh yeah, of course. That's one of many things. There's no single thing that is the reason for unintended pregnancies going down or the teen sex rate even going down. There's more multiple things. Like anyone who's telling you otherwise is oversimplifying it. And he went into just like, he was like appreciative. He was just agreeing. I had them. It's fine. It is okay. We should have these conversations. We can have the tricky conversations about policies and how we gotta handle all that stuff. But yes, we should be listening to whatever studies there exist on how we can help people to not be getting pregnant when they don't feel like they are ready to take of a baby.
- [46:20]
B
Yeah. The one thing that I will push back on just slightly that I often bring up when I'm answering that question is obviously I don't disagree with what you said. Like obviously the people taking birth control does decrease the amount of unintended pregnancies that happen. Doesn't matter what you think about birth control. Like it does decrease them. However, a lot of pro choice people that I talk to have an attitude of if we just handed out birth control to everybody, the abortion rate would completely go away because there'd be no. And that is very not true. Most pro choice people are shocked when I tell them them that 50% of women who have abortions were using birth control the month that that unintended pregnancy occurred 50%. That is a pro choice statistic. It was actually brought up in the Dobbs case by the pro choice lawyer because she was trying to argue, no, we need to have abortion access. Just increasing birth control is not going to do it because at best, if every single woman was using birth control every single month, that would eliminate half the abortion in the U.S. okay, pro
- [47:19]
A
life people need to bring that quote up a lot more often.
- [47:22]
B
Oh, I bring it up constantly. I bring it up constantly, Josh.
- [47:25]
A
That might be the biggest gift to the pro life movement. I mean, it's not literally the biggest one in Dobbs, but it's a big one that I had not really reckoned with.
- [47:33]
B
Yet another thing I really wanted to say, Josh, to your earlier point about the science thing, one of the most fascinating things to me about that video sidebar, I agree with everything you said. I also am experiencing in my conversations more and more biology ignorance, especially these days, than I used to. Back when I was in college we did not get much biology ignorance. And now I'm getting more and more and more of it. I think it is becoming more common. So science, really important. You do have to get that baseline in your conversation. But I do think the debate is primarily about philosophy. And I think even more than that, a lot of people use the word science when they don't actually mean science. And that was a thing that I noticed in this video. She said at the beginning, my arguments about abortion are all related to science. And then she didn't say a single science thing for the whole rest of the video. She talked about how this has been happening since the beginning of time and that should really matter and we should like she was basically making a philosophical argument that because you can't stop it completely, we should make sure that it's available so people aren't doing it. That's all philosophy, logic. None of that has to do with science. And maybe I'm trying to say the
- [48:39]
A
science part is like the scientific fact, the anthropological fact that really it's a historical fact. Humans have had abortions for a very long time.
- [48:49]
B
Yeah, I was still insane. That's a scientific fact.
- [48:51]
A
But that doesn't get to an ought, right? That doesn't get you to an ought. That doesn't tell you what ought to be right. In order to have an ought to
- [49:00]
B
have, we have to have philosophy. A lot of people say things like, well, scientifically a fetus isn't a person because it can't like think. And I'm like that. That's how Science is so. Yes. Anyways, we should get to our third video. We have six, but we're talking a lot. So I think what we're gonna do is we're gonna split this. We're gonna do two parts. Wow. If you listen to the Equip for Life podcast, you've never heard us do that before. Split into two parts. Problem is, there's just too much to talk about, so we are gonna.
- [49:30]
A
There's so much common ground, to be fair. There's so much. Like, if we were just talking about this stuff, if we were just, like, ragging on these people, like a lot of other shows would, this would be shorter. This would be a lot quicker.
- [49:40]
B
But we have a lot to say.
- [49:40]
A
A lot of common ground.
- [49:41]
B
Yes. Okay, so we'll do the third one, and then we'll stop and we'll go into a second. Second podcast. This girl does not have her name. I guess we can use her handle, which is yeah, girl. So this is what yeah, girl has to say. All it says on the screen for this one is just how to talk to pro lifers. So here we go.
- [50:00]
E
We need to change our tactics when talking to pro lifers. The my body, my choice argument doesn't work and will never work because to them, there's a second body growing inside of them that's worth just as much as the body growing the baby.
- [50:20]
B
Josh, you and I both had the same reaction. Just go. Just talk. Oh, my gosh.
- [50:24]
A
Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.
- [50:26]
B
I saw your face, and I know it was doing the same thing my face was doing, so just.
- [50:31]
A
Okay, let's do this. Okay. Let's just make some people mad at us right now. Lifesight. Are you listening? Go ahead, get your tweets ready at me, because you do it every single, single time.
- [50:41]
B
Okay.
- [50:41]
A
There is a common faulty pro life argument. To be fair, this is a more subtly faulty argument. It's not as obviously faulty as the Beethoven argument, which is still the number one baddie of all of them. But there is a common. And there's a meme. There's this common meme that's kind of like it's making this exact point. It's like, look, ceaseless. My body, my choice. Look, there's this other body. Look, look, there's this body inside the other body. I don't even remember exactly what it says.
- [51:08]
B
I will pull it up.
- [51:09]
A
Yeah, there it is.
- [51:09]
B
There it is. We have a podcast episode liter. Literally talking about.
- [51:12]
A
Oh, my gosh, I forgot it starts with for the logic impaired.
- [51:16]
B
Your body, someone else's body, not your body, not your choice. Abortion is murder. There you go.
- [51:21]
A
I think, oh my gosh, so many things wrong with this.
- [51:24]
B
This is not what pro choice people mean when they are talking about my body, my choice. They are saying that a woman's body is affected very deeply by pregnancy, which as a current pregnant person who is very nauseous and has a lemon drop in her mouth, I can agree with that. Pregnancy affects a woman's body, body very intimately. And so the argument goes that she should then have the right to decide what happens in and to her own body, even if it is affecting this other person. That doesn't really matter if this is another person because it's inside her body and so it falls under her jurisdiction. And we call that the sovereign zone argument. And we can throw some links in the description about that. But the point is, pro tw people are not confused about the biology of what's happening.
- [52:06]
A
Our lifers are confused.
- [52:07]
B
Our lifers are confused. Now what this girl does in her TikTok to her credit is she is like, okay, pro life people, let's just deal with this. Think that we mean this.
- [52:17]
A
The confusion is so universal, right? The straw men are so universal. We need to abandon this argument.
- [52:24]
B
So we need to abandon the slogan is basically her argument, which I can't say I disagree with.
- [52:28]
A
I'm okay with that.
- [52:30]
B
I think I agree with her. The argument isn't working.
- [52:33]
A
I have also said this. I've been giving pro lifers a really hard time. So let me say, and I've seen said this publicly many times, there are some areas of this debate where pro lifers sometimes are like, I think more often the party at fault. But clarity in the rhetoric, in the arguments and the slogans is not one of them. I think this is an area where pro choice people often use very vague rhetoric. My body, my choice can mean one of at least four very different arguments. We're always encouraging people. You got to start with clarification questions. You don't know what they mean yet. Do they mean that it's literally a part of her body? When they say my body, my choice, do they literally think it's like another organ, like a kidney or something like that? Probably not. Very few people actually think of pregnancy at that surface y level, although maybe more than I previously thought.
- [53:19]
B
I think more than you previously thought. Maybe more than I previously thought, but still very few.
- [53:23]
A
They still can also mean that it's her body, her choice because it's inside of her body and therefore it's dependent on her. Therefore it's not a person. It could also mean that it's a sovereign's own thing and she can do whatever she wants because it's in her body. They could be in a right to refuse thing, which is saying that you can't do whatever you want with anything inside of your body, but you can at least do some things. You can at least refuse to have your body hooked up to a violinist. You can at least do that. Right? Okay. My body, my choice implies I could be any of the four. At least there's more. Also, I don't even want to get into the others.
- [53:55]
B
Yes, it can mean so many different things. And pro choice people, generally speaking are smarter than pro lifers get them credit for. And they mean something much smarter by saying my body, my choice.
- [54:07]
A
At least when they're making philosophic arguments. I think I'm saying like when people are saying scientific things, maybe they are less smart than I've thought. But philosophically, when they're saying the philosophically or attempting to say philosophy things, they
- [54:16]
B
are usually saying smarter things. Okay, yeah.
- [54:18]
A
So does he have a replacement?
- [54:20]
B
I'm very curious to find out.
- [54:21]
A
Oh, you wouldn't know, right? I wouldn't know. I haven't watched it.
- [54:24]
B
So here we go. What does she recommend we do instead? As the pro choice community, what should they do instead of my body, my choice? I can't wait.
- [54:30]
E
We need to tackle the issue at the source. A cluster of cells or an embryo is not yet a conscious body and should not be treated as such. Use science in your arguments and not social justice. Because there's always two sides to social justice and there's only one side to science and that's facts. There's facts and then there's fiction. A cluster of cells with no autonomy of its own should not be more protected than a woman fully grown with a conscience. A woman that can actually feel pain physically and mentally. Additionally, let's say that my sister needs a life saving blood transfusion.
- [55:18]
B
Oh, here it comes.
- [55:19]
E
And that I'm a match and I'm the only one that can save her. I still have to give consent to give my blood even if it means saving her life. Corpses even have more body economy than women in this country because you need their consent when they're living. You need to be an organ donor before harvesting their organs for donations. My point is use science, counter their logic and maybe some people will understand.
- [55:53]
B
This is an amazing example of what we were just talking about, where she says use science and then she brings up two philosophy arguments.
- [56:00]
A
Yeah, like, and one of them is one of the better ones. Like, see, this is a better version than sovereignty.
- [56:07]
B
But she's still thinking of it as science, which I think a lot of people use the blanket term science. So basically, for our ardent ERA fans, she is recommending two things we talk about frequently. Her first thing she recommends is instead you should be talking about why the fetus isn't a person because it doesn't have consciousness and it can't feel pain. And so that means it's not a person.
- [56:23]
A
Does that also mean sentience? Like in the beginning she said like conscience. Does that mean.
- [56:28]
B
Is that a conscientious sentient.
- [56:29]
A
And consciousness, when you put the words together.
- [56:31]
B
I would need to ask her some clarification questions on exactly what she means. But basically the fetus isn't a person because it can't do X. Like its brain isn't developed enough to do X. That's argument number one. Argument number two is a right to refuse argument. I have the right to refuse donating my organs to someone else. So I should obviously have the right to refuse donating my organs to this thing that is using my uterus.
- [56:53]
A
Just the fact that organs and corpses are things that we talk about within science, the fact that my wife has talked about blood transfusions a lot within this subsompan scientific field does not mean that it's a scientific argument you're making. It's still a philosophical argument based on some scientific facts. It's still philosophy. When you say cluster of cells, it's also kind of question begging.
- [57:19]
B
Yeah, she might have some scientific misunderstandings going on in there. I could very much believe that. And we're probably gonna need to talk about those at some point. But I wouldn't start there because it's pretty.
- [57:31]
A
It's not the main thing.
- [57:32]
B
Right? It's not the main thing going on. And that's pretty clear. But if I were to change her mind, theoretically, in the course of a long conversation or multiple conversations, at some point we are gonna need to talk about science because I'm pretty sure she has some misconceptions going on.
- [57:45]
A
Right. But you would probably go at the blood transfusion course more rights thing first. Right?
- [57:52]
B
I would go there first. I think it's her stronger argument and I think it's the one that persuades her her the most. And so I would start there, then we would back up and talk personhood stuff, which I think would require us to talk a little bit. About biology stuff. That's 100% the order that I would go.
- [58:05]
A
All right, well, we don't have time to get into the blood transfusion corpse argument thing because I think that is a really, really common pre release argument and meme that goes around all the time. Where can we send people to if they are interested in how we would respond to that argument?
- [58:22]
B
I have made so many TikToks on this, Josh. Like, so many tech talks on this. I will link to my favorite one in the description. But oh, my gosh, this is an amazing opportunity to remind people, or if you didn't even know ERI Index exists. And it is amazing. Okay, we do not talk about this thing enough. Our amazing intern who now works for us. She's amazing even. Well, she made this ERI index and it breaks down all of the main arguments of the abortion debate and then. And then gives you every single resource we have on them. So if I'm just like on the ERA website and then I go to pro life content, boom, down ERA index, I, in this case, would look at the right to refuse section under bodily autonomy, and that would take me down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There's like 20 things here.
- [59:10]
A
These are all links, These are all links.
- [59:11]
B
These are all links to all of our resources on how to respond to that particular argument. But if you're looking for something short, if you're looking for a TikTok, as we said, I will link one TikTok specifically in the description. But you can also go. If you're at the very top of the ERI index, you will see a link to the reels Index, which is something we literally just published last week. This is a brand new resource. Just breaking down.
- [59:35]
A
Didn't know we did this.
- [59:36]
B
We did this while you were on jury duty, Josh. Nice. It was amazing. We've been getting requests for people to, like, point me to specific reels that they do because they're helpful. I've been sharing this. I know. So what I did is I just broke down, down our most popular Instagram reel. So, like, I have made at least 75 reels about biology. Okay. And a lot of them get very repetitive, but these three are like the most popular. They don't overlap with each other. They're just covering like three different sections. They're my favorite ones. So I in this case, would scroll down to the right to refuse section. You can't force kidney donation. Literally, she just talked about that. Here is my 1 minute reply to that. Even if you caused a car crash, you still can't be forced to to donate blood. Similar, but not quite the same because this one is like, well, you caused it. So it's trying to deal with that whole you caused the pregnancy responsibility objection. Uh huh. Uh huh. Each of these links you directly to that one to two minute response from me. And at the top you can also link straight back to the ERA index so they link to each other. This has got your long form stuff. Like if you want to listen to an in depth podcast or read a whole article about how to respond, or if you're like, I just need the 1 minute version, go to the Reels index and you can find me giving you a one minute version.
- [60:45]
A
If Jessica or Aaron or yeah girl end up watching this and wanting to kind of feel like, how do they respond to this thing? Like this would be like a quick way to find it. This is a resource for you. You can see exactly how we respond and you can start working on your next counter argument, counter video, stitch us or whatever and continue the dialogue. I'm so glad that we did that. Oh, I'm so glad we did. Man, there have been so many times I've got to go to you and be like, can you find me the TikTok on this thing? And is like this whole I'm so good job.
- [61:13]
B
Yeah, it needed to happen and so now it happened. We were busy while I was on Drury duty.
- [61:18]
A
It's not like the office shut down. It was fine.
- [61:21]
B
We were just fine. And that was a beautiful task that I could do while laying in bed. This is one of the things that kept me busy. It was nice.
- [61:27]
A
Nice. Okay, well then should we stop there?
- [61:30]
B
Yeah, let's stop there. We got three more for you in the next episode, but I think this is a great place for us to pause and let you think about how you want to have better conversations with the prochoice people around you. Just like these people are trying to. I mean, these people are trying to convince pro choice people to talk to you. That's like what they're doing is trying to convince rich people to talk to you. So you need to be ready to talk back because they want to have conversations. And that's really cool.
- [61:51]
A
It is. Thank you for listening to the Equipped for Life podcast, a project of Equal Rights Institute. Equal Rights Institute uses speaking, writing, YouTube videos, podcasts, online courses, and campus outreach to help pro life advocates in the areas of practical dialogue tips, relational apologetics, pro life philosophy, and sidewalk counseling. If you've been helped by this podcast, please consider supporting it by making a donation@equalrightsinstitute.com.