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PBA120H: How to Effectively Dialogue About Pre-Born Human Rights
Include more mock-dialogue examples?
Integrating Head, Heart, and Hands: The Ambassador Model
According to Aristotle, effective communicators need to have ethos (credibility/character), pathos (empathy), and logos (logic). Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Thomas Collins, puts it this way: we need to build a bridge (ethos), touch the heart (pathos), and then and only then can we effectively deliver the message (logos). If all we have is an argument, no one will want to listen.
Another way to think about this is through Stand to Reason’s ambassador model. To be effective pro-life ambassadors, we need:
- Knowledge (logos/head), an accurate mind — We should employ reason and provide compelling evidence for our positions.
- The purpose of the pro-life classroom is to equip you with the knowledge needed to make an airtight pro-life case against abortion. Wondering how to respond to the claim that a pre-born child is "just a fetus"? Not sure how to respond to the claim that abortion is medically necessary to save a woman's life? Want to learn more about embryology, philosophy, or the law? The pro-life apologetics on this site are here to help!
- Wisdom (pathos/heart), an artful method — We need to know how to communicate the knowledge we have.
- An ambassador will listen with the intent to understand, which means listening closely to what the other person is saying, and to what is not being said but is still being communicated. By hearing what the other person is really saying, the wise communicator will better know how to respond.
- Character (ethos/hands), an attractive manner — Everything we say and how we say it is complimented by who we are, so that if we talk about respect, we need to show respect, and if we talk about love, we need to show love. We need to know when to challenge people, and when to stop and listen to a person who is in pain.
Wisdom in Dialogue: Being Proactive Rather than Reactive
Abortion advocates may ask a question that is designed to make the pro-lifer defend herself. It is important for the pro-lifer to remember the abortion advocate supports killing innocent children and that’s the position that should be challenged. A wise pro-life apologist will avoid getting distracted by tangential issues brought up by an abortion-advocate, and will re-focus the debate on the primary issue at hand: the killing of pre-born children.
Here is a dialogue example from when the local media in St. Catharine's reported on CCBR's demonstrations in the city. Devorah Gilman responded proactively rather than reactively to a question from an abortion supporter:
“[Nicole] McDowell, who said she cares for foster children, also asked [Devorah] Gilman how many foster children she was raising.
'Whether I personally adopt or foster children, can I not still speak out on behalf of the most vulnerable Canadian children that are being slaughtered? said Gilman.”1)
For more examples of how to be proactive rather than reactive, check out this blog post from another CCBR staff member.
Show, Don't Tell
How do we communicate our knowledge about abortion in a way that combines wisdom and character? How can we communicate in a way that will actually reach people's hearts and minds?
Imagine, for a moment, that you are back in your high school math class. Your teacher has just assigned you an algebra problem for homework. He assures you that it's an easy question, but it doesn't look easy to you–it looks like there are many variables which must be considered. You're not sure what the answer is, or how to even get to the answer.
Now imagine that you ask two of your classmates for help. One friend confidently declares, “The answer is five.” The other friend shoots back, “No, it's not. The answer is 12”. Back and forth, they repeat their contrasting answers. Who do you believe? At that moment, you don't have a good reason to believe either of them. They have simply given you answers without showing you how they got to those answers. This is why any good math teacher tells students to “Show their work.”
What if, instead of asserting an answer, your first friend takes out a sheet of paper and works out the problem with you, step by step? Now would you believe her? Yes, because she has shown you how she got to that answer. Now you can understand the problem, and the answer, for yourself.
The principle that applies to math-tutoring also applies to pro-life dialogue: Show, don't tell. We need to give people reasons and compelling evidence for our views, rather than simply stating conclusions. We need to guide people to the truth so that they will understand and accept it for themselves.
Ask Questions
- Ask questions to expose presuppositions
- “Be a toddler” strategy: repeatedly asking “why?” (especially for moral relativists–expose inconsistencies)
“It amazes me sometimes just how quickly someone’s views on abortion will start changing, even during a very short conversation. One woman recently told me with great hostility that she supported abortion, because ‘A woman’s autonomy is greater than a baby’s autonomy.’ I translated that in my head to 'bigger, older humans should have power over smaller, younger humans' and I knew she probably didn't really believe that. So I responded by asking her, ‘Should our humanity be dependent on our size?’ She paused and admitted, ‘That’s a good question.’ At the same 'Choice' Chain, a man told me he was ‘Pro-abortion. A woman should have the right to choose what happens to her own body.’ I pointed to my image of an abortion victim and asked him whether we were talking about one body or two during pregnancy, and he agreed that there were two bodies involved. He only had time to speak for about a minute before leaving, but within that minute, he changed his position from staunchly pro-abortion to saying, ‘I haven’t really given it much thought. I’m not really firmly on one side or the other.’ We may not get more than a minute with some people on the street, but we can start impacting them quickly if we ask compelling questions and present compelling evidence. When we do that, we see that it really doesn’t take much for the pro-abortion worldview to start crumbling.”
Tell Stories
Bridging from the Head to the Heart
Heart apologetics? / beINSPIRED / bridging the gap from head to heart:
On branching from head to heart: http://www.unmaskingchoice.ca/blog/2013/10/07/ignorant-or-denial
- Understand
- Love
- Inspire
“Whom you would change, you must first love, and they must know that you love them.” - Martin Luther King Jr.
Seek to Understand
“Case in point—my colleague Maaike recently shared this testimony about the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) when it was displayed at the University of Lethbridge last fall:
'In one conversation, a pro-life student went to the heart of the matter when an angry protester defended her right to abortion. The protester had already heard our apologetics from another volunteer, talking for about 45 minutes. Then the protester turned to the pro-life student when the pro-lifer asked her why she felt she needed to defend abortion. It turned out that the protester had been abused by her dad and her mom didn’t do anything; she said she would never put a baby in a similar situation. The GAP volunteer expressed sympathy and affirmed the woman's value. They then talked about abortion, and the volunteer asked how killing her own child would improve the situation/cycle of abuse. After about 30 minutes the woman said no one had ever told her that she deserved to be loved by her own parents. She then rolled up her sign and left.'
No one had ever told her that she deserved to be loved by her own parents.
When we seek to understand, we find ourselves amidst profoundly beautiful opportunities to build up the brokenhearted, and to love them—to desire the other’s good—in a way that the abortion advocate least expects yet most needs to hear.” - Stephanie Gray
Role-Playing
Role-play is a critical part of dialogue.
instructions for role-playing on 100-level circumstances type issues, good exercises
more detailed notes, like TRTL “abortion: why not?” presentation
Western Lifeline's notes for 2-3h workshop, work in progress– link allows people to comment suggestions
- Respond appropriately: e.g. CCBR blog post about going to pro-life town with SLED versus listening to someone in pain
- etc.