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with transcript
okay fantastic
i am really young in case you didn't
already notice that
i am fresh out of college and so that
means that i get asked the question
a lot
what are you doing for a living right it
happens every two seconds if you're like
in your last year of school anywhere you
get the same exact question all the time
i'm like getting my hair done and the
lady in the salon says to me what do you
do for a living and
i spent months
hating that question because
i work for a national pro-life
organization okay i talk about abortion
all day every day so how do i answer the
question what do you do for a living in
a way that's gonna start our
conversation off on the right foot if
she's pro-choice
because in all likelihood she is
pro-choice and so i want to talk about
abortion that's what i do but i want our
conversation to go well
and so this is what i finally settled on
if someone says to me emily what do you
do for a living i say well
i help pro-life people
to be less weird
and every single time they do exactly
what you just did
they kind of turn their heads sideways a
little bit and they look at me with the
squinty eye face and they're like what
does that mean
and i say well i help pro-life people to
make more good arguments and fewer bad
ones
and i help us to connect relationally
with people who are different from us so
that we can actually engage with their
ideas
it's a really strange job i recognize
that but i think it is so needed in our
society today because in case you
haven't noticed
our society is
horrendously bad at actually engaging
with people who think differently from
us like it is quite frankly been
depressing to me just watch how
polarized our society has become
like abortion has always been a
difficult topic to talk about it's
emotionally complicated i think it's
ethically and philosophically
complicated which we'll talk a lot about
tonight but
these days
it seems like we can't have a
conversation about anything
like i'm really aware that there's no
good examples quite honestly in the
media of adults who can disagree with
each other respectfully and productively
they usually just end up screaming at
each other either literally or in all
caps on the internet and they are
attacking each other's character rather
than the actual ideas that are coming
out of their mouths
i think it's a major problem on every
side of politics these days and i want
to see that conversation get better but
if i'm being totally honest with you
i get particularly peeved
when i see people on my side
who are engaging in that kind of
negative behavior
because i think it is hurting our
movement i think it is hurting us when
there are pro-life people or
conservative people or christians or
whatever
who are engaging in that kind of
negative hatred towards people on the
other side and here's the problem it
happens a lot
i see it all the time i come to
conferences like this and when a whole
lot of people who think similarly all
get in a room together
sometimes bad things can happen
sometimes we start to talk about the
other side as if they're not there
and we can talk honestly and we talk
about how we think they're idiots
and we talk honestly about the kinds of
frustrations we see
when we're on tick-tock or we're
listening to podcasts or whatever like
we all love to live in confirmation bias
we love to only listen to the people or
watch the things that we know we're
gonna agree with as a matter of fact we
love to watch things that dunk on the
other side
we love to watch things that make us
think the other side is dumb
bad
or our enemy
there's a lot of people and things that
we like to take in who do that and i
think it is really bad for you
like i will go as far as to say that i
actually think it is hurting your soul
you should not be listening to people
who make you think the other side is
dumb
bad or the enemy
because it is a lot more complicated
than that folks like if i'm talking to a
pro-choice person okay i'm very pro-life
i work for a national pro-life
organization
if i am talking to a pro-choice person
i don't think that she's dumb
i really don't i think that she has a
lot of reasons that brought her to this
particular position maybe some things
that have happened in her life maybe a
worldview thing there's always a lot of
compassion for women involved
she's a lot of good reasons for why she
came there i think my reasons are better
and i'd like the chance to be able to
tell her why
but if i treat her like she's dumb you
can bet i'm never gonna get the chance
to do that
and i certainly don't think that she's
my enemy
and even if i did like
that would do us literally zero good in
solving absolutely any of the
controversial issues in our society
today
and the same is true in reverse like if
you're pro-choice and you treat me like
you think i'm dumb or bad or the enemy
you're not going to be able to make me
change my mind either
what we need is less hate and more
dialogue in our society and i'm trying
to encourage that in the pro-life
movement i think we need more dialogue
among friends
and less debate among strangers on the
internet
i'm trying to help the pro-life movement
to be like what i think jesus would be
if he was here today
talking about today's controversial
issues i think he would be what
colossians 4 5-6 says
it says conduct yourself with wisdom
towards outsiders making the most of the
opportunity
let your speech always be with grace as
though seasoned with salt
so that you will know how you should
respond to each person
that's how i think jesus would be if he
was here today he would conduct himself
with wisdom towards outsiders making the
most of the opportunity he would not
just avoid talking about abortion
because it's too controversial
no you wouldn't do that i see way too
many christians doing that today
but he would speak about it with wisdom
and with grace and here's my favorite
part
he would know
how he should respond to each person
he wouldn't just respond to some
stereotype he has in his head of what
the idiots on the other side think
now he would get to know
the pro-choice person standing right in
front of him
and what their needs are
and their concerns are and their
arguments are and their worldview and
all of those things he would get to know
that person
and he would respond to that
because that's how people change their
mind
that's what happened
quite honestly
on my college campus let me back up i
used to be absolutely terrified
to tell anyone that i was pro-life
i bet many of you have been in this boat
before if you're not there right now
i grew up catholic i went to k-12
catholic school whole nine yards and i
knew like sort of
that when i went off to college that was
going to be a place where my beliefs
would be challenged but i had
really no concept
of what i was actually getting myself
into
i went off to st olaf college in
northfield minnesota of all places if
you know where minnesota is and
just to paint a picture for you my
freshman year the fall of my freshman
year our local pregnancy resource center
amazing place offers free resources for
pregnant and parenting people in the
community
our local pregnancy resource center was
hosting their annual fundraising banquet
and they decided to do it on my college
campus they had like rented out a space
on the college campus and that's what
they were going to do it and when the
students on my campus found out about
that
they managed to organize and insane
number of students to line the hallways
of our entire student union with signs
screaming
at the mostly elderly members of the
community that had come to support this
pro-life resource
is anyone shocked that i was terrified
to tell people i was pro-life
when that's what i walked into so i kind
of kept my mouth shut until about
january of my freshman year when my one
good catholic pro-life friend her name's
meredith
when meredith happened to see a poster
for the pro-life club
there actually was a pro-life club on my
college campus it was being
single-handedly run by one senior girl
she was like doing her best
one woman pro-life show style
but how much can you really do when like
that is your campus and the whole campus
is against you
and so she
put up this one poster for the pro-life
club and meredith saw it and she dragged
me to their meeting kicking and
screaming and nonetheless this senior
girl was absolutely thrilled when we
showed up because we had just
single-handedly tripled the size of her
club from one to three
so the three of us in in this one
meeting decided that that spring we were
gonna try to do some stuff and i'll be
totally honest with you every single
thing that we tried that spring failed
epically
it was a complete disaster i remember
that one specific week that spring we
put up a hallway display we reserved
this hallway in the student union and we
were going to put up this giant pro-life
display that we made ourselves we were
super proud of it and we put it up
and it was vandalized 13 times in one
week
and when i say vandalized i mean
destroyed
whole thing is destroyed ripped down we
have to reprint the entire display and
put it back up 13 times i don't even
want to know how much money we spent
that week on that display out of our own
pockets mind you because we had no money
i would submit a bias report to
administration every single time our
display got vandalized saying like um
hello
students are vandalizing our stuff and
they're kind of not supposed to do that
and my reports would basically go into a
black hole
like i'm i don't know if anyone ever
read them i'm sure they're in a file
cabinet somewhere
it was
completely aggravating so end of my
freshman year comes along and suddenly
that senior girl graduates right and so
i found myself as the new president of
the pro-life club
basically by default
and so that summer my very tiny club and
i realized that something had to change
like clearly this was not working
and our campus desperately needed to
hear the pro-life message
but what we were doing
wasn't reaching them and suddenly one
day in the middle of july i got the
email that just like literally dropped
out of the sky i have no other way of
explaining it because it was the email
that introduced me to equal rights
institute which is the organization i
now work for
okay so i got this email saying hey
there's a national pro-life organization
that is dedicated to helping pro-life
people actually reach pro-choice people
and i was like wow do i need that
and so i took my very tiny club through
their online training materials through
their training and how to actually talk
to pro-choice people and early that fall
of my second year of college
we decided to take that material and go
out and actually start having
conversations with pro-choice students
we would literally set up a table in
like the cafeteria area of our school
and it would say should abortion remain
legal on it
and trust me students wanted to voice
their opinion in that question
and so hundreds of students started
coming up to our table and voicing their
opinion in that little poll and then
engaging in conversation with one of us
fast forward my last year of college we
have been consistently doing this
setting up a table having these
conversations almost weekly every single
week
for the next three years
and our entire campus
changed
my club like exploded in size pro-lifers
had come out of the woodwork there had
always been pro-life students on my
campus
but they like me were too afraid to tell
anyone
and they saw that there were other
pro-lifers here and that these
pro-lifers were having an impact
and they wanted to join us and not only
that but we had pro-choice students who
had changed their mind about abortion
after talking to one of my club members
and they joined our club
even more importantly
to me though
i cannot tell you how many students i
talked to whose perceptions about my
club completely changed like this is an
exact conversation i had at least 500
times i'm wrapping up talking to a
pro-choice person and they say to me
something like
wow um
i don't really know what i think right
now
i need to take some time to like process
this
but i just want you to know
i really respect you
like
i have never heard such an intelligent
and loving pro-life argument before and
i used to hate you guys like it was a
miracle if i didn't walk past your table
and not stop and punch one of you
someone actually said that to my face
that it was a miracle if they didn't
walk past my table and not someone punch
one of us and i was like thank you
i'm glad you didn't punch me but now
i actually stopped and talked to you
and i found out that you are nothing
like i thought
and i want to tell all of my pro-choice
friends to come and talk to you too
because not only do i respect your right
to be here having these conversations
i'm so glad you're here having these
conversations because i think every
student needs to actually listen to what
you guys have to say
my senior year
vandalism ended
we had won vandalism my entire last year
of college
my freshman year my first year we had
had 13 vandalisms in one week okay my
senior year
we had
one
the whole year and when it happened i
submitted my bias report to
administration because i am basically
the queen of writing bias reports at
this point
and
i got a personal email back from them
within 30 minutes
apologizing
that i was continuing to experience this
kind of vandalism letting me know that
they had looked at the security camera
footage they had already identified the
student who had done it and they were
putting that student through the
disciplinary process
in 30 minutes
my first year of college administration
wouldn't give me the time of day
and my last year
we had become the most respected and
professional student organization on our
campus
i had never talked to administration
directly at that table
but i watched them walk by more times
than i could count they were listening
in on conversations and they were
hearing from pro-choice students what
was happening
and suddenly
we were taken seriously
that local pregnancy center you know the
one that got insanely protested my first
year of college
they came back
to campus my last year
they had had their fundraising banquet
elsewhere the years in between shocking
i know
but my last year they decided to come
back
and there was not a single student who
protested it
my campus
completely changed
and i don't take credit for that
it was all of my club members
sitting there for hundreds of hours
actually getting to know the pro-choice
students on my campus
actually listening to them
understanding what their concerns were
and their ideas it was them doing this
it was them loving the students in front
of them and that is what the pro-life
movement needs to do
if we're gonna actually reach pro-choice
people
because i think there's a literal
catastrophe in the pro-life movement
that today's pro-life people do not
understand pro-choice people
i don't think they understand where
they're actually coming from or the
kinds of arguments that they're making
because pro-life and poetry's people
often speak two different languages okay
it's like pro-life person says a and
pro-choice person hears b
or virtuous person says x and probably
person hears why it's kind of like our
brains do google translate
have you ever seen one of those really
funny youtube videos where someone takes
the lyrics to a famous song like let it
go and then they translate it from like
english to french and french to spanish
and spanish to manor chinese and then
back to english and then someone sings
it and it's hilarious because google
translate gets it
wrong i think that's exactly what our
brains do
when we're having conversation with
someone who thinks very differently from
us
i think there's a second layer problem
here too
which is that pro-life people
too often are stuck using religious
arguments
we don't live in a theocracy folks i do
believe that the bible is pro-life fully
believe that
but that is not going to help
because we don't make laws based on
bible verses we all know this
so if you're talking to a pro-choice
christian be my guest i have a really
fun like little syllogism that you can
use it's from my friend scott klusendorf
it goes like this human beings are
intrinsically valuable because they're
made in god's image
it is wrong to shed innocent blood the
unborn are also human beings their farts
wrong shed their blood if you're talking
to a pro-choice christian go for it i
have never used that literally once
because i don't talk to that many
professed christians
but i think sometimes pro-lifers seem to
think that christianity is going to help
them to be able to sell the pro-life
position it's kind of like if you were
talking to a muslim person
and they were trying to convince you
that fasting during the month of ramadan
should be legally mandated for all
adults in the country
you'd be like that's interesting okay
tell me more why why do you think that
and if they started quoting verses from
the quran to you
you would say okay i totally understand
why you think that you should be fasting
during the month of ramadan i get that
that makes total sense to me but i don't
think that applies to me
because i don't believe in the quran
like that totally tracks for all of us
in this room right so then why when
someone says i'm pro-choice do so many
pro-life people respond back with well
did you know that psalm 139 says that
god met you in your mother's womb and
then jeremiah 1 5 says that god knew you
before time began and then in the new
testament we have second trimester john
the baptist who was kicking in his
mother's womb at the sight of first
trimester jesus
and the pro-choice person is like i
don't believe in your book
okay i think the bible was written 2000
years ago by people who heard voices in
their heads
that is not helpful and even if you come
across like you're only pro-life for
religious reasons
that isn't even going to help a
pro-choice christian because they know
we don't live in a theocracy
and so they know that it doesn't really
matter what the bible has to say about
abortion for our laws
and that is why we need a completely
secular argument against abortion we
need to understand where the average
pro-choice person is coming from and we
need to be able to respond to them in a
secular way and that's what i'm here to
teach you tonight
pro-choice people say a lot of phrases a
lot of slogans come out all the time and
some of them can sound really really
uh stupid
like people will say
no one knows when life begins
or an embryo isn't alive
now usually pro-life people have this
inclination to just launch in to a
biology monologue
please do not do that
that is like the least helpful thing
that you could do right now
the very first thing the single most
important thing if you take nothing else
away from me talking this is it
the single most important thing that you
need to do when someone says no one
knows when life begins is ask a
clarification question this is what i
say i say i want to understand your view
but i'm not sure what you meant
when you said no one knows what life
begins
did you mean that no one knows when
biological life begins or did you mean
something more philosophical like we
don't know when a person begins to exist
i've asked that exact clarification
question in literally thousands of
conversations with pro-choice people on
college campuses
do you want to know what percentage of
people said the former that they were
talking about biology
like less than five percent
most pro-choice people today
are very clear about the biology of the
unborn they got that already they are
making a much more advanced claim
they're talking about when an entity
becomes a person
when it becomes the kind of thing that
should have rights under the law and so
if you start going off in a biology
diatribe while they were talking about
philosophy they're gonna tune you out
because you clearly don't understand
what they're actually talking about
the single most important thing you can
do is ask this clarification question
now if you are talking to the five
percent that are talking about biology i
got you
we're gonna go talk about biology for
like two seconds but please do not think
that this is where most purchased people
are because it's not then we're going to
talk about philosophy so if someone says
no i am literally talking about biology
i don't think we know when biological
life begins
there are three things
that you need to know about the unborn
they are living
they are human
and they are whole
we're going to break those down one at a
time living human and whole so the
unborn are all alive because
they have the characteristics of living
things which are three they are growing
through cellular reproduction
they are metabolizing food into energy
and they are reacting to stimuli
now there is debate amongst biologists
about if an entity has only two of those
three things
there is genuine debate about whether or
not it is biologically alive
as soon as it has the third thing the
debate is over guys
it is biologically alive that means
nothing about whether it should have any
value that's not what we're talking
about we're talking about is it
biologically alive okay next one the
unborn are human because
living things reproduce after their own
kind only
we all know this okay two cows cannot
get together and have a duck it's just
not how that works
all right
we also know that the unborn have
uniquely human dna this is something
that pro-lifers love
to bring up all the time
it is true i don't think it's that
helpful most of the time pro-life people
bring it up because remember i don't
think portrait people are talking about
biology most of the time but it is true
so if you are talking about biology feel
free to bring it up the unborn do have
uniquely human dna
the unborn are whole organisms because
now
if a pro-choice person is confused about
the biology
this is usually where the confusion is
because they'll often say to me
something like okay
i get that it's alive and it has human
dna but so does a sperm cell
sperm cell is alive it has human dna and
you don't think sperm cells are sacred
i understand the confusion okay that
is because the unborn are not merely
part of a body like a skin cell or a
sperm cell is in other words this is a
confusion between parts and holes
a sperm cell is a part of a body it is a
part of an organism like if you are a
man in this room your sperm cell is a
part of the organism that is you my skin
cell is part of an organism that is me
okay the unborn is its own organism
i did not make up science terms i don't
like know why they decided to classify
it that way but that is the way science
classifies itself
okay so the unborn are their own
organisms nothing about value just it's
an organism folks
i think one of the reasons that
pro-choice people often get confused
about this is because they think of
human development kind of like a
construction project like a car imagine
that you work at a car factory
and you and a bunch of your friends go
out after work for a beer and you have a
super philosophical conversation about
when the thing that you are building
is actually a car
and i know a lot of people that was have
this conversation for several hours
because they have way too much time on
their hands
so we can imagine there's multiple sides
to this debate right so there's one
person that says well it's when the
engine goes in the car like the engine
is the heart and soul of the car so when
the engine goes in then it's a car and
there's another person who says no it's
when the wheels go on the car because
without wheels it can't move anywhere
and that's like what a car is designed
to do so when the wheels go on then it's
a car and there's another person that
says oh no it's at the very end when you
can turn the key in the ignition you can
drive it off the assembly line then it's
a car
i guarantee you right now
that there is no one in this debate who
is claiming we have a car when the very
first two pieces of steel are welded
together
that is ridiculous
and that
is how i think pro-choice people often
see pro-life people
because they're like i could have
sympathy for someone who says halfway
through pregnancy it's a human but
really guys
like you're picking the first possible
moment
i get why that seems weird okay but
here's the problem the unborn are not
constructed like cars
they develop themselves from within
that's really hard to explain because
there's not much out here in like our
world that operates the way the unborn
do the best analogy i have
is a polaroid picture
if you've ever played around with like a
polaroid camera
the moment that you take the photo
the moment the shutter goes off
the image exists
you just can't see it yet
all it needs are nutrients
in the proper environment
for the right amount of time
and it will just grow itself it's like
magic just appears
and that is way more like the unborn
because here's the thing nothing is
actually added to the unborn from the
time of their fertilization except for
adequate nutrition in a proper
environment which spoiler alert are the
exact same two things that you and i
still need to keep growing to maturity
i am not considered scientifically
mature i am 23 years old
and so i still need adequate nutrition
in a proper environment
in order to continue growing to what
science would consider me to be mature
and so if you are an organism now you
had to have been the exact same organism
at fertilization because nothing
essential has been added to you
that is the biological evidence in a
nutshell you're going to use that almost
never
let's go talk about the way more
interesting thing the philosophical case
for the unborn in other words
why is it that the unborn should be
considered
persons
not biological humans persons the kind
of thing that has rights like you or i
there are a lot of different valid ways
to argue for the personhood of the
unborn
but we teach a particular way at equal
rights institute because it has quite
honestly been more persuasive
than any other pro-life argument my team
at eri has ever seen
this is what we do for a living we
literally go out to college campuses and
we talk to purchase students constantly
and this argument was so effective that
it kind of became a running joke
like we developed it a few years ago we
used to use a different personhood
argument and then we developed this one
and then we went out and started testing
it on college campuses and we would sit
down and debrief after our day of doing
outreach and the first person would be
like i had five people change their mind
about abortion today we're like oh my
gosh what happened tell us more and be
like i used the equal rights argument
and the next person be like no way i had
four people change their mind today
because i use the equal rights argument
and down it went down the circle
we have never seen anything
that changed so many protest minds as
this particular argument so if you ask
that clarification question if somebody
says something like no one knows when
life begins or an embryo isn't alive and
you clarify do you mean biology or
philosophy and they say philosophy
i don't think the unborn is like a
person like you or i
now is the time
to make the equal rights argument i'm
going to teach you how to do it in four
steps
step one
is to step away from abortion
that probably seems like a really weird
thing to do in a conversation about
abortion
but it's actually going to help you a
lot because our goal is to show them
that they think differently about
abortion than every other issue
it's also going to help the conversation
if it's feeling a little bit tense
because we're going to talk about
something that they're probably
extremely passionate about equality
and so it's really important
that we ask their permission first
because i don't want them to think i'm
dodging the question or something that
like oh i've been defeated by their
purchase argument so i'm going to go
talk about something else no so i'll say
something like this
can we put abortion on the shelf for a
minute so i can understand how you think
about rights more generally we'll come
back to abortion in a minute
and then i'm gonna ask them if they
think that equality is important
asking specifically about the right to
life
or the right to protection from violence
and there's a couple different ways you
can do this i might say do you believe
in equal rights for all people
do you think equality is important do
you think people deserve an equal right
to life or my personal favorite
do you think it's important for people
to have equal protection from violence
that's the one i usually use feel free
to pick whichever one it feels i guess
most natural to you
they're going to say yes
so you should take a minute to actually
point out that you agree this is a
valuable place to build some common
ground i will happily take a minute and
talk about how i think there's a lot of
cases in history
where we have not adequately protected
people from violence because of some
arbitrary trait that they had
like we deemed that females weren't
people that should be protected or
people that are of different races
weren't people who should be protected
this is not a debate
there is no timer
so we are not in a race for me to get
out my pro-life argument as fast as
possible
my goal is for this to be a conversation
we're two friends standing by side by
side trying to find truth together
and so that means that i'm not afraid to
take a minute to point out my common
ground and talk about how we can agree
that it's it's really important to
protect people from violence
then
step two
i'm gonna sort who is in
and who is out in other words i'm gonna
set up this idea of an equal right to
life club
this is an idea like we're taking equal
rights as a concept and trying to make
it tangible so we can imagine it so
we're gonna have this equal right to
life circle or club or community or
whatever
the idea is that every entity inside of
this club
has an equal right to life or an equal
right to be protected from violence
and all of the entities outside of this
club do not now here's the key
this is an equal
right to life club that does not mean
that the entities outside of this club
have no rights
it just means that they don't have the
same rights as a thing inside of the
club
everything inside is equal
the things outside might have some level
of rights but they're not the same as
the thing inside this will become easier
as we start to actually sort because
i've created this really obvious
question
what is it
that belongs inside of this club
and so i'll ask the pro choice person
i'll literally establish this idea be
like let's make this idea of rights
tangible and i'm here to talk about the
equal right to life club okay
so i'm going to ask them specifically
about three different types of entities
the first one is human adults
after all if we don't agree that all
human adults should be in the equal
rights of life club i am going to feel a
lot less emotionally safe right now
okay i want to be sure that we agree
that all human adults regardless of
their race or their gender or their
sexual orientation or their disability
status or their whatever it is equally
wrong to kill
any human adult i think we can all agree
on that it should not be controversial
all right so we got them all in the
equal right to life club now i ask a
second question what about human
newborns
genuine questions should human newborns
be in the aquarium to life club i have
never talked to a pro-choice person in
real life
who actually thought that it was okay to
kill newborns
there are some famous pro-choice
philosophers that are willing to say
that
most pro-choice people
if they initially say yeah i think it's
okay to kill newborns if i press them on
that a little in the context of a
conversation
and i'm not like being hostile to them
they'll back off of that real fast
if you want to ask me more about that
during q a you're more than welcome to i
can go down that rabbit hole but 99
of virtuous people you talk to do not
think it's okay to kill newborns if
they're actually being honest with you
about their view and they feel like
you're being honest back with them and
they can have this genuine conversation
so we know human adults are in the equal
right to life club human newborns are in
the equal rights life club what about
squirrels
like serious question i'll say this to
the first person i'll be like this might
be kind of a weird question but
let's actually consider it for a second
what about squirrels
should they be in the equal right to
life club again i have never
talked to a pro-choice person in real
life
who thinks that squirrels should be in
the equal rights life club if they say
they should be
they always backtrack as soon as i do
this
i'll say i totally agree with you that
squirrels have some level of rights like
i definitely think we should not be like
torturing scrolls for fun or something
that would be gross just weird please
don't do that
i think
in my view
squirrels belong in maybe this other
club
like i don't think they're the same as
human adults and human newborns i don't
think they're in the equal right to life
club i feel like they're over here in
the some rights club in the it's wrong
to torture you for fun club
and as soon as i clarify that the
purchase person is always like oh yeah
no that's totally what i think i'm like
okay cool we're good squirrels are not
in the equal right to life club they
definitely have some level of rights and
maybe protest person and i will disagree
on exactly how much right squirrels
would have
but they don't think of the exact same
as human adults and human newborns again
happy to go further down that rabbit
trail during q a if you want to talk
about crazy people that actually think
squirrels are the same as us but that's
very rare all right so
we've sorted three things
human adults are in human newborns are
in and squirrels are out
that leaves us
with a really obvious question
what is it that is granting certain
entities access into this equal right to
life club while denying other entities
like there must be something in other
words there must be some reason
why some things are in the equal right
to life club and some things are out
let's call the thing that gives you
entry x what do you think it could be
i'll ask the pro-choice person what what
do you think x is and they'll give me a
variety of answers
there are two things that we already
know about x
we know it has to explain why human
adults are in and human newborns are in
and squirrels are out
we also know that it has to be a trait
that you either have
or you don't have
it cannot be something like us on a
spectrum it can't be like a dimmer light
switch
it has to be something you have or you
don't have so example
it cannot be intelligence intelligence
cannot explain why we have an equal
right to life
because we're not all equally
intelligent
and if you don't believe me just go to
youtube and start reading the comments
under the first video you find
okay it's okay i am pro equal right to
life for obnoxious people on the
internet i'm just saying that
intelligence cannot explain why we have
an equal right to life and so
it has to be a trait you either have or
don't have otherwise you'd have
different levels of a right to life
based on like how intelligent you are
okay
so
i will ask the pro-choice person what
they think that x is and they will
provide me with a variety of answers and
every single pro-choice answer you get
is going to have one of two problems as
my friend trent horn says pro-choice
definitions of personhood either include
too many things like squirrels or they
exclude too many things like newborns
let me show you what i mean here's some
very common pro-choice answers that i
get to what is x
the ability to think
and that by that i mean the ability to
have mental processes at all
does that include human adults
yeah
does that include human newborns
yup
does that exclude squirrels
no
scrolls can have mental processes here's
another one
the ability to feel pain and we're going
to simplify that definition to just be
physical pain that's caused by like
disease injury or something that hurts
the body does that include human adults
yes does that include human newborns yes
does that exclude squirrels
no
squirrels can feel pain as can most of
the animal kingdom now sometimes polish
people like to bring up really rare
cases of human adults that cannot feel
pain like gabby gingrich is a really
famous example or other people that have
hereditary sensory and autonomic
neuropathy type five
say that five times fast
it is a real condition that there are
some human adults that cannot feel pain
but i haven't found that very helpful to
bring up to pro-choice people because
they kind of think of gabby gingrich as
being more of an exception to the rule
as opposed to something that actually
disproves the rule so i found it way
more helpful to point out that basically
the whole animal kingdom can feel pain
than to point to just rare cases of
human adults that cannot
here's another one
self-awareness and by that i mean the
ability to reflect on your own existence
at all does that include human adults
yeah
does that include human newborns
no
human newborns are not self-aware the
most basic form of self-awareness which
is the ability to know your own body is
like a physical object begins at about
four months old
but
if you're using that definition the one
that philosophers use the ability to
reflect on your own existence
that doesn't start until about 18 months
old
remember how i said that there are a few
rare cases of famous pro-choice
philosophers who think it's okay to kill
newborns
that's why
because they think what makes you a
person is this very advanced thing that
newborns cannot do
and therefore the logical implication of
their position is that it has to be okay
to kill newborns it's a pretty repugnant
position to ninety-nine percent of fair
choice people
so most perfect people do not actually
agree with the extremes of their own
side here's another one viability the
ability to survive outside of a uterus
does that include human adults yes does
that include human newborns literally
that is the definition of a newborn
does that exclude squirrels
no it would exclude squirrel fetuses
but that does not help us guys viability
is not a plausible definition for what
makes a person last one
sentience and by that i mean the minimal
ability to perceive the world does that
include human adults
yes does that include human newborns yes
oftentimes people will jump to this
after they did self-awareness they
realize that self-awareness doesn't
include newborns so they back it up to
like a way more basic ability like just
let's just say you perceive the world
you don't have to know yourself but you
can just like vaguely perceive the world
so they'll back up to this because
newborns can do this
but
squirrels are very sentient okay
squirrels collect their nuts for the
winter usually all over a seven acre
area which is berserk okay they are very
aware of the world it is craziness
sentience cannot explain why you're a
person so if the protest person hasn't
already asked you at this point we move
on to our last step
which is to share your solution
in other words
this is what i think x is i think the
only thing that already that works with
the things we already know from our
sorting process
is that something like human nature
is granting access it's the only thing
that everyone in this community shares
equally and so to bring abortion back
into it that's why i think embryos
should be protected from violence
they have that same thing
that the rest of us in the community
share
and so i think they must be included
i am not pro-life because i want to
control women's bodies or punish people
from having sex or something
i'm pro-life because i'm pro-equality
and i'm anti-violence
and i think the only way to logically
affirm equal rights
is to protect the unborn
too now you might notice something in my
definition when i tell portraits people
what i think it is i say something like
human nature and probably people are
like what does that mean what do you
mean by something like human nature
first of all
poetry's people never ask me that i know
that's mind-boggling to you the first
time i learned this i was like what do
you mean protest people don't ask what
you mean by human nature they don't
because the concept of human nature just
makes sense to people regardless of what
religious or non-religious background
they come from regardless of what world
view they come from they have this idea
that like there is something valuable
about humans
and so they can kind of define human
nature however they want to in their
head and it makes sense they're like
yeah the unborn are also human so i'm
i'm tracking with this this makes sense
now if i'm talking to like a pro-choice
philosophy professor at a university
i'm gonna have to go deeper than that
and so i do want you to know that i do
have a deeper answer and it's way longer
than i have time to get into right now
and so this is my two second plug
for our online training materials at
equal rights institute we have something
called the equip for life course on the
left which is what i'll talk about right
now which is basically an online
training course to teach you all the way
from square zero of like how do i just
get approaches persons walls down so
they'll even talk to me
all the way up to what are the smartest
pro-choice philosophers in the world
saying and how do i respond to that and
everything in between it's amazing
that's the course i took my club through
and then we heard going out and having
all those conversations with pro-choice
people and so if you want to know what i
mean by something like human nature
lesson 10 of the equip for life course
is an hour and a half video on advanced
philosophy land of what is human nature
super interesting if you never want to
watch that video you can just skip it
but if you like philosophy that's the
place to get that answer
really quick review
if you're gonna make the equal rights
argument a pro-choice person says a very
vague statement like no one knows when
life begins the embryo isn't human you
ask that clarification question i want
to make sure i understand you
when you say
it's not human did you mean it's not
biologically human like it's not a
member of the species homo sapiens or do
you mean something more philosophical
like an embryo is not a person that
should have rights like you or i if they
say they meant the more philosophical
thing you're gonna step away from
abortion and talk about equality you're
gonna set up this idea of an equal right
to life community
and try to sort who is in and who is out
focusing on
human adults human newborns
and squirrels
then you are going to solve for x you're
going to try to figure out what it is
that is granting certain entities access
into this club while denying others
and last but not least
you're going to share your solution
ensure that ultimately the reason that
you're pro-life is because you think
that's the only logical way to be
pro-equality is nothing to do with my
religion absolutely nothing
i am able to make a nuanced and secular
pro-life argument
that can be understood
and applied to something that our
generation is extremely passionate about
as we should be
if you can go out and make arguments
like this that are actually relevant
to our generation that fit them in the
way that they think in the way that we
ought to be thinking
that's how you can ultimately change
campuses
and how you can change minds
thank you
[Applause]
thank you so much emily that was amazing
that's very insightful um so we now have
10 minutes for another q a with emily so
once again you guys can just come up the
sides here if you have a question and
hopefully we can get to all of them
oh sorry
um uh my question is like you said um
that you were
in your first year of university you're
feeling you know terrified to come out
as pro-life and to have those
conversations so i was just wondering if
you can give encouragement to the young
people here who are you know scared or
nervous to have those conversations like
what is the best encouragement to
build up the strength to have those
conversations and come out as pro-life
yeah that's a great question so
i know that i myself probably never
would have had the guts to come out as
pro-life if i didn't have that one
friend meredith who was standing by my
side
and so
find that person first of all you don't
have to do this alone
and you're all here today you came here
with somebody
you know one other pro-life person i
guarantee it
and so coming out with someone else as
pro-life can be really really helpful
number two
make sure
that you are equipped with how to
explain your position
and
my organization can help with that
there's a lot of other pro-life
organizations that can help with that
help you feel confident to answer those
basic questions of why is this what i
believe how do i respond to things like
abortion in the case of rape like
questions that come up all the time get
ready with those answers so that when
you actually come out as being pro-life
you're not afraid of what people might
say because you're like i am equipped
i've practiced you can even practice
with a buddy so one of the things that i
do at equal rights institute is i help
to train college pro-life clubs
and we have this program called the
affiliate group program that i will not
go into right now but one of the things
that i do with my students in that
program is after they've gone through
our training materials we will like
practice dialoguing i will play pro
choice on a zoom call i'm very good at
playing pro choice i've talked to a lot
of pro-choice people i can do it really
well
and so we'll actually give them a chance
to practice using the arguments do that
with your buddy like practice talking it
through so that the very first time you
were trying to answer what do we do
about abortion in the case of rape it's
to your friend who you know is actually
pro-life
not to the scary pro-choice person
because
a my my final point is that purchase
people actually aren't that scary
i have never ever done an outreach with
a college pro-life group i go around to
their campuses all the time i train
college students and then i'll go out
and i'll have them set up that same
table that i did on my own college
campus and i will sit there with them
and we'll have conversations with the
students on their campus i have never
done that
and we haven't gotten to the end of the
day and the students will say to me oh
my gosh pro-choice people aren't as
scary as i thought
you can do it
if you are just nice
what a concept
i promise you that they're going to do
that in return if you start asking them
questions
show that you genuinely are trying to
understand where they're coming from
they will follow suit
so get a buddy get some practice
and know that it's gonna be okay
fortress people are not that scary
thanks for your question thank you so
much
so she stole my question
do you have another question uh
no but i would just like to say um i
thank you very much because i have many
pro-choice friends and
i just kind of find it always
frustrating when i want to talk to them
and
i don't really i really knew how to talk
to them how to converse just just have a
intelligent conversation without
really insulting each other
and um now we can get to somewhere and
um i thank you for that
thank you so much for your comment i
really appreciate that i'm glad to know
that you found this helpful
hi hello um i may be poking the bear
with this question but i'm kind of
wondering in your experience have you
ever found that there are people who um
maybe don't value life after birth and
how do you respond to them and maybe
further than that have you ever met
someone where you think like it's not
even worth it to like not that someone
isn't worth trying to have that
conversation but has it ever been too
difficult that you don't think it's
possible to maybe convert them or
convince them of another belief
sure
um so first question
yes i do talk to sometimes people that
don't seem to really value life after
birth and that's a whole different
conversation
which basically to like start with the
very basics there the first thing i try
to do is
nail down where their line is because
i've never talked to a like poetry
person who was like
you should just be allowed to kill me
right now
like no problem
like they're not gonna say that
obviously so what is it
like where are they drawing their line
sometimes it's a certain level of
cognitive ability so certain people with
disabilities would be out you know not
being allowed to have rights or you have
to be to a certain age sometimes it has
to do with your usefulness to society
and i'm talking to a utilitarian so my
very first step is to figure out where
are they drawing their line
and then depending on where that line is
i'm gonna have to attack it differently
so that's a super broad question and so
that just really involves getting to
know what are kind of the different
kinds of world views that might result
in that so i would suggest you know go
look up utilitarianism relativism
disability ethics those are probably the
three biggest ones i see that result in
someone not really valuing life after
birth to go to your second question
i have had precisely two conversations
and the thousands that i have these are
two very memorable ones where i just had
to end the conversation with them
and that's not because i think they're
unreachable i think it's because they
were unreachable in that moment
they were not in an emotional place
where they could have a conversation
right now this happened one of those two
conversations was just about three
months ago i was on a college campus and
this couple actually came up to me and
they were just screaming at me like i
could see them coming from a mile away
and i can take that for a little while
oftentimes people will come up really
upset and that's okay
i i get it you think that i'm trying to
take away your rights
if i thought someone was trying to take
away my rights i'd be pretty upset too
so it's okay i will just let them talk
and usually what happens is after about
five minutes of them just word vomiting
at me
they realize that i'm listening
and they're like hold up she hasn't
tried yelling over me she's just like
sitting here with really relaxed body
language taking it in
and then they kind of pause for a second
because they're confused and then i jump
in and i ask a clarification question
which is really not what they're
expecting me to do because they think
i'm going to launch into my pro-life
monologue now that they took a breath
and so suddenly they start calming down
i've seen that pattern happen hundreds
and hundreds of times do not give up on
someone because they came up to you
really mad
but in this particular case with this
couple i tried that and it didn't work
they just kept kept screaming and i gave
them another five minutes and we kept
going i was like these people really
worked up okay and we went for probably
about 15 minutes and i could not get a
word in edgewise i wasn't even trying to
make an argument just trying to like get
them to calm down and show them that i
was listening
and at the end of about 15 minutes i was
like this is not a good use of my time
in my head i'm like they're not in a
place right now where we can actually
talk
and so i ended the conversation and when
i do that i said i say something like
this this is what i did in that case i
said look i'm just here because i'm
trying to have more productive political
dialogues with people because i think
people really suck at talking about
issues like this
and i would love to be able to talk to
you and really understand where you're
coming from but it doesn't really seem
like
that's what you're looking for right now
it feels like you just want to yell at
me and that's not really productive
and so if if you want to come back later
i'm going to be here all day and you're
in a better place and maybe we can
actually talk like please come back i'd
love to talk with you
but right now
i think
i'm gonna go talk to some other people i
hope you have a nice day
they did not shake my hand
but i offered
and they stormed off i've had that
happen precisely twice that one and
there was one a couple years ago
it does happen but it's very rare
so essentially if someone is like mostly
morally good and not totally insane then
they're probably capable of having that
conversation with you i believe that and
i believe that couple is capable just
they weren't in that moment
and there may be another time i hope
with a future pro-life person where
they're
alone more in a better place and they
can have that conversation
yeah
uh so i have a question well two
clarifications and one question by
you know how you said it's not moral to
kill adults right yeah
uh by killing you mean murdering because
in war people do kill each other yes so
that's a really good quest question i
don't usually just say that in my
conversations with pro-choice people
sort of reason they don't ask that
question very often but i will clarify
that if they do ask that i think we're
talking about killing that is not in
self-defense
like we all agree that killing and
self-defense is okay and
just war like a concept of being in war
we can have a debate all day long about
whether we've actually ever had a just
war like we can argue about that
different people have different ideas
that's fine we all agree in the concept
of one like that could hypothetically be
a case in war where it's okay to kill
people so yes we're talking about
killing innocent human adults like it's
not okay for me to just like kill you
right now
obviously not so hope that clarifies
uh another clarification um you know how
you're saying in debates that people
uh they just usually call each other
names and you know yeah don't use logic
that's also i think that's also mainly
because in debates p it's not in debates
aren't arguments so you can't change
people's minds anyway and the whole
point of debates is to make the other
person look dumb and make yourself look
educated yes
exactly
so
that is another reason that the
dialogues i'm having are not debates
because a dialogue is where we are two
people standing side by side trying to
find truth together
and a debate is where you're trying to
make the other person look dumb
and you're trying to win over an
audience and if that is your attitude
going into a conversation
please don't have that conversation
because you're not going to do any good
by it that was a very good point thank
you for bringing that up
um one last thing so
can you argue with people who don't seem
to want to listen to reason and if so is
there a way that you could do that
good question um
i think most people
are willing to listen to reason
if they're in a comfortable safe place
in the conversation in other words
people are not open to changing their
mind when they're feeling like
emotionally unsafe i'm not talking about
like crazy kinds of emotional safety
that some people our age try to justify
but if they're feeling
threatened by you
they're feeling intimidated by you
they're not gonna be willing to listen
to reason
if they feel like you guys are friends
you've built some rapport with them
you've asked clarification questions
you've shut up long enough for them to
talk
so that you actually show in your body
language
i'm i'm really trying to understand you
i'm taking a lot of time to clarify that
i understand you then their wall starts
to come down and they start to feel
emotionally safe and they're more open
to hearing what you have to say
i don't think i've ever talked to a
pro-choice person in real life i've
talked to him on social media for sure
but people don't feel emotionally safe
on social media people on social media
are willing to listen to reason
because they're trying to protect their
image
and if they show that they're starting
to think differently about something
that ruins their whole image to their
followers
but if i'm talking to just you
like i'm actually talking to you
and we've become friends
you're willing to just
calm down
and not be so scared about what other
people are going to think about you in
that moment and they're willing to
listen to reason i think the primary
reason people aren't is just because of
the state that they're in in the
conversation which is why your very
first goal has to be to get their wall
down
so they're going to be in an open place
to listen to reason and if they're not
in an open place because they're
screaming at you like my question over
here then maybe now isn't the best time
for that conversation for them
and maybe we can come back to it later
i hope that answers your question yeah
thank you i'm really sorry but we'll
have to stop q a right now um just so
that we
don't go too like far behind on schedule
can i
so yeah the people who have questions um
emily will be at the candlelight vigil
later tonight and she is available by
email um social media very happy to to
take questions then
sorry i have to keep things moving i
also have a table downstairs you can
come visit me um yes uh so can i get a
final round of applause for emily then
