Which Path: Equality or Inequality?

In this Dialogue Example, Jeremy Gorr shares the strategy he uses in many of his conversations to help people see more clearly the problems with arguments that divide the human community based on functional abilities.

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-Steve Wagner, Executive Director

On a recent visit to the University of Wyoming I had a conversation with “Grace.” We established early on that the unborn is biologically human, but Grace then pointed to the differences between the unborn and the rest of us.

Grace: I don’t consider abortion killing. You’re stopping a heartbeat so it’s technically killing, but consciousness and awareness is what matters for me.

Jeremy: Do you think human rights and value are grounded in the fact that we are human? Or do you think human value comes from the capabilities humans have?

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Background: Jeremy interacts with a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie in April 2025.

Foreground: JFA’s Art of Life Exhibit signs encourage students to reflect.

Grace: You’re asking if you and I should be compared based on our capabilities? I would say no. After the fetus is born it should not be judged by its capabilities, but before viability I think it’s different.

Jeremy: Do you see how judging any humans, even young ones, based on their capabilities destroys the whole basis for equality? Treating humans before viability differently is the definition of inequality because they are equally human.

Grace: I see what you’re saying.

Jeremy: I look back at history and see that we’ve killed tens of millions of humans because they were different in some way. Each one of those killings was an atrocity, right?

Grace: Right.

Jeremy: I think we’ve learned throughout history that there’s no good reason to kill unwanted humans. Can you think of any?

Grace: No. When you say “unwanted” I think I see where you’re going. The fetuses that are aborted are obviously unwanted.

Jeremy: They are different in some ways to you and me, right?

Grace: Yes.

““We should strive towards equality. On the path of equality our differences don’t matter, and that’s why we can’t exclude the unborn because of their differences. That’s antithetical to equality.””

— Jeremy Gorr

Jeremy: What I think we’ve learned throughout history is that there are only two paths we can follow – the path of equality or the path of inequality. I think we both want equality, right?

Grace: I think everybody wants equality, but I don’t think that’s completely achievable for any society.

Jeremy: I agree, but we try. We should strive towards equality. On the path of equality our differences don’t matter, and that’s why we can’t exclude the unborn because of their differences. That’s antithetical to equality.

Grace: I guess, but we’re always fighting inequality. The idea of equality is really nice, but everybody’s different opinions will forever keep us from equality.

Jeremy: Then let’s stand against inequality together. We can start by treating all humans equally under the law, and protecting all our lives, even those young humans in the womb. Wouldn’t that be a start?

On this trip we conducted outreach for the first time at the University of Wyoming. See also Kaitlyn’s reflection here, and see more spring 2025 photos here.

Grace: I don’t know. It’s a super important conversation to have. It was really good to talk to you about this.

Grace then had to leave because her ride home arrived. I had given her a lot to think about. While she didn’t tell me in that moment that her mind had changed, I trust that God is still at work. I pray the questions I asked will stay with her, and that God will use those questions to gently guide her toward the truth because we can build a world where every life – born and unborn – is valued equally.

Where Do You Draw the Line?

In a conversation with a student at MiraCosta College in October.

Where do you draw the line on human rights? It’s a common question I ask people on campus while we look at images of human beings, born and unborn, in all stages of their development. I’ll ask them at what point they think humans begin to have the basic right to be protected from violence. I was at MiraCosta College in Oceanside on October 8-9, and I spent time talking about this question with a student I’ll call “Jake.”

We were looking at pictures of embryology together and I pointed at a picture of an 18-week-old fetus and asked him if he thought the abortion of that unborn child is wrong and should be illegal. He said yes. I then pointed to the 12-week-fetus,and he agreed it was wrong and should be illegal to kill a human at that point as well. I pointed to a seven-week-fetus, and his answer was the same. Then I pointed to a four-week human embryo, and that’s where it got murky for him. He said abortion should be legal at that point. I asked him if it had anything to do with how the human looks at that stage of development. He said yes.

Like Jake, many people struggle to see the early human embryo as having the same right to not be killed as you and me. I presented the equal rights argument* to Jake and made the case that if we believe every human being should be protected from violence and harm, we all have to share something equally. I made the case that human nature makes the most sense of our equality. That answer doesn’t lead to counterintuitive implications that would end up including animals or excluding newborn infants. Our equality is not rooted in how we look or in what we can currently do. If I’m right about this, then it’s wrong to kill the unborn even if they don’t look like you and me yet— it’s wrong because they are human just like us.

After I shared this, I asked him if he thought the criterion he was using to determine which humans get equal rights was a good one since it was largely based on how the human embryo looks. Jake told me, “I’m doubting it now.”

Many people have views about human value that are misinformed and based on criteria that actually result in great inequality and injustice. That is why it is so important for us to have conversations about these important issues with those around us.

*Go to www.jfaweb.org/equal-rights or www.jfaweb.org/notes#4 for more stories and equipping.

"You Changed My Mind in a Way"

At Palomar College in December, I talked to a young woman named “Emma” who told me abortion should be legal up until 12 weeks of pregnancy. I asked her questions to gather more information about her view, and we started talking about whether the unborn are human beings. I shared some evidence from the field of biology with her and explained why I believe the unborn are human beings from fertilization. I then explained that we have to be incredibly careful when we draw a line as to when human beings begin to get their rights. If we draw that line incorrectly, we end up excluding certain human beings from being equally protected from violence.

Rebekah (far right) in conversation at Palomar College in San Marcos, CA, December 2022

I presented the Equal Rights Argument to her, which is a helpful tool we teach in our seminars and our online Love3 workshops. I began this way: If we believe in equal treatment, there has to be something the same about all of us to ground our equal rights. So what is the same about all of us that gives us an equal right to be protected from violence?

During my conversation with Emma, I made the case that our human nature is the thing that is the same about all of us that is the foundation for our equal rights. Since that’s the case, we need to include the unborn in the equal rights community because they have a human nature. If we pick some other foundation like rationality or the ability to feel pain, we’ll end up including animals in the equal rights community or excluding infants.

After I explained my view in this way and showed her some images of abortion in the first trimester, she said, “You changed my mind in a way.”

I was really encouraged to hear Emma acknowledge some change in her view. Usually people need time to process the conversation and re-evaluate their perspective and that can take days, months, or maybe even years. Even when I don’t see change or know the immediate impact of my conversations, I’m thankful I can depend on the Lord who calls all of us to trust in him and continue to do good. (Psalm 37:3)

An Abortion Conversation in a Jacuzzi?

“I was not planning on talking about abortion. It was Labor Day weekend, and I was at the house of my brother’s boss, “Jim.” I had been trying to set up a meeting with him for awhile to discuss the possibility of financially supporting my work with Justice For All. I knew he was more on the pro-choice side but also knew he was really open to speaking with me. I had prepared notes for this particular conversation, and I had been planning on reviewing them prior to discussing my work. I thought we would meet at a coffee shop at some point. This is the story about how my plan for preparation quickly went out the door and how God made something special out of it.”

I had the opportunity to work through abortion in the case of rape and also talk about the Equal Rights Argument. Click here to read how the whole conversation went.

Jack Changes His Mind...Three Times

Part 1: A Good Conversation Is a Mirror

One of my favorite conversations from my JFA work is my conversation with “Jack” from 2013. Recently I’ve been sharing it with audiences as an example of the kind of complete change of mind that can happen very quickly. I don’t mean to imply that most JFA conversations result in a conversion this dramatic, but the story does help us catch a glimpse of what is possible with any conversation. Let’s trust that God is working behind the scenes of every conversation, even if we don’t see results like this. -Steve Wagner, July 2021 Impact Report

It was a special treat. In many conversations, the person with whom I’m speaking doesn’t show a clear change of mind. I simply must trust God to work behind the scenes. In one conversation at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) in March 2013, though, I had the privilege of watching a young man I’ll call “Jack” change his mind...three times.

“Jack” (right) and Steve ponder pictures of human development and work to discover what explains our equal rights. (Photo by John Michener)

Jack had talked to someone at our outreach the previous day, so when I asked him where he drew the line on human rights, he was ready with an answer. “At eighteen weeks,” he said. Through a few minutes of clarifying questions from me, he stated that he believed the unborn was a human being biologically, but that the basic right to life began when brain processing was such that the unborn could respond to sound.

He had another reason to draw the line at about eighteen weeks, though: viability. Again, I asked a few questions to clarify what he meant, and he confirmed that he meant that when the unborn could survive outside the womb, even if she required technology, she would have the basic right to life.

“Doesn’t progress in technology move the point of viability earlier and earlier?” I asked.

“That’s a really good point,” Jack pondered. He and I agreed human rights could not be determined by a criterion that could be moved from year to year by technological advances. The first change of mind.

I then raised a problem for Jack to solve. “If all of us walking around the campus deserve equal treatment, we must have something the same about us that demands that we be treated equally. But what is the same about us?”

He had raised the possibility that “brain processing” was the thing that made the unborn valuable at about eighteen weeks. I asked if he meant brain processing itself. When he said, “Yes,” I pointed out that brain processing is something that comes in degrees – we can have more or less of it. Since it’s not something we all have equally, it cannot ground equal rights. He saw the problem.

I gave him another option, though. If he framed his explanation for equal rights as “that we have brain processing at all” then it would be an all-or-nothing property that could potentially ground equal human rights. It was true that all of the adults whose rights we were discussing in the vicinity of the outreach at UTSA did have the property of “having brain processing at all,” and they had that property equally. If Jack was right that this adjusted criterion was the reason for basic rights, then that would account for the equal rights of adults, and it would account for the fact that infants also share those equal rights. In fact, the basic right to life would then extend into the womb to approximately the point he had picked, at eighteen weeks.

I pointed out, though, that this would present an additional problem: then many animals, such as dogs, would also have equal rights to the rest of us, because they also have the property of “having brain processing at all.” Jack made a predictable move at this point and added two additional criteria. “You don’t just have to have ‘brain processing at all’ to have equal rights. You also have to be viable and human.”

I asked him if he could give me an independent reason to believe that value should be based on these three things in combination. I was looking for an independent reason other than “It saves my view that the unborn should only be protected after eighteen weeks, and that whatever rights animals deserve, they shouldn’t be equal to humans.”

He saw the point of my question, and he quickly saw what philosophers would call the ad hoc nature of his argument. His only reason for adjusting his argument was to save it from the implications I drew from it.

I could see the wheels turning. My explanation for equal rights was also on the table – human nature. But the implications of that view were also clear: if human nature is the thing that we all share equally that demands that we be treated equally, then the unborn should be treated equally, too, because the unborn has that same human nature.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” he said. “I agree that abortion should only be legal if the mother’s life is in danger.” A second change of mind.

Unlike many students I talk to, who feel they have to put on confident airs or defend their arguments at all costs, Jack clearly wanted something more than to impress me. He wanted to understand truth. He got the truth, and I ended up impressed with him anyway – especially with his humble spirit.

I hadn’t taken a posture of trying to change Jack’s mind. Our conversation functioned more like a mirror, reflecting back to Jack what I heard him telling me. He responded like the happy young chap about to make a business proposal who barely remembers to check the mirror and finds a spot of mustard left unceremoniously on his chin by his lunchtime liverwurst. No one wants to be oblivious to his real state of affairs. There were two factors, though, that especially caused my mirror to be helpful to Jack:

• Without the skills of clear thinking, the mirror would have failed to reflect certain portions of the image properly. Because I knew the questions to ask, the exact image emerged for Jack. Mastering clear thinking skills takes work, but you can learn to create a helpful reflection for someone like Jack. To take practical steps to begin developing these skills, see www.jfaweb.org/clear-thinking.

• The image would have become blurry or distorted like that of a carnival mirror had I not had an attitude of humility and goodwill. If I had needed to show Jack my intellectual prowess, he might have felt the need to take me down a peg or two. If I had belittled his views or mocked them, it would have made it harder for him to take the truth seriously. He might have felt the need to defend turf, and he would have been distracted from the truth altogether.

Throughout our conversation, I brought an attitude of partnering to find truth together. I considered his arguments as if they might be true. Because he was worth my time, his arguments were worth my best efforts to evaluate them with him. He looked in the mirror that our conversation was presenting to him, saw his views for what they were, and decided to make a change right then.

I sensed that our work was not finished, though, because Jack and I had not yet confronted the two thorniest aspects of the topic, especially when combined as an argument for legal abortion: bodily rights and rape. Instead of assuming the conversation had been sufficient as a mirror, I decided to turn it into a window. That’s when Jack had his third moment of truth. I’ll explain in Part 2 below.

- Steve Wagner, for the JFA Team

Note: Steve’s conversation with “Jack” took place in March 2013. This report was originally published later that year. Special thanks to John Michener of Oklahomans United for Life for his editing on this piece in 2013. This post has been updated in minor ways and can be shared via www.jfaweb.org/mirror-and-window.

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Part 2: A Good Conversation Is a Window

In this report, you’ll see the conclusion of my conversation with Jack from 2013, and you’ll see him change his mind a third time. You’ll see how I gave him a window for viewing the most compelling arguments for abortion, along with compelling responses to them. I hope reading this conversation will not only inspire you to look deeper into the ideas, but that it will also help you see that you can create conversations which compel abortion-choice advocates to change their minds. - Steve Wagner, August 2021 Impact Report

In Part I above, I described how “Jack” in San Antonio abandoned his belief that the unborn only become valuable at viability and then later said I had convinced him that abortion should not be legal except in the case of a threat to the mother’s life.

“Jack” (above, right) initially clarified that he believed abortion should generally be legal. 90 minutes later he said, “Heck” and wrote on the Free Speech Board (below). He told me that he now thought abortion should not be legal even in the case of rape.

These two changes of mind were encouraging, but I sensed that our work was not finished. We hadn’t yet discussed arguments claiming that even if the unborn is a human being, the woman’s right to her body justifies abortion. I knew that if we didn’t address these bodily rights arguments, especially compelling in the case of rape, Jack might be shaken when he encountered them.

In the first part of the conversation, Jack had been making the claims, and I had been functioning as a mirror to help him assess his own views about abortion. Now I set out to function more like a window, showing Jack other arguments out there that he hadn’t considered yet.

I began by explaining what former JFA intern Trent Horn called the “Sovereign Zone” view: A woman can do anything she wants with anything in her body, and because the unborn is inside her body, the woman can kill the unborn. I pointed out that if a woman has the right to do anything with anything that is inside her body, then many things would be justified legally, including intentionally deforming the unborn by taking thalidomide and intentionally torturing the unborn late in the pregnancy through dismemberment abortion. (See “Autumn in the Sovereign Zone” at www.jfaweb.org/body for more on this approach.)

Seeing the implications of the Sovereign Zone view clearly through this window, Jack and I agreed it had to be abandoned. I knew that there was a stronger version of the bodily rights argument that was not so easily dismantled, though, and I went on to tell Jack about it.

Sure, it’s obvious that a woman can’t do anything to anything that is inside her body. But can she be forced to allow the unborn to do something to her body – to use her body to sustain its life? Or does she have a right to refuse? As Trent Horn has pointed out, unlike the Sovereign Zone argument, which is based on a very controversial premise, this “Right to Refuse” argument is based on a very uncontroversial premise: Generally speaking, you can’t be forced to do something with your body you don’t want to do.

It’s not only pro-choice advocates who find this argument plausible. I find it plausible. If you find yourself hooked up to someone who needs your kidney to live, you can’t be forced to stay hooked up. How then can a government force a woman to stay hooked up to her unborn child? And worse, what if the woman didn’t consent to intimacy? Can a woman who is pregnant from rape be forced to continue to use her body to sustain the unborn’s life? As Jack and I pondered these questions together, I noted how compelling this line of reasoning is. Even if it holds only in the case of rape and therefore applies to no more than 1.5% of abortions in America, it’s troubling.

It’s important to note that throughout this conversation I emphasized genuine sympathy for those who have been raped. This is imperative in any conversation about rape and abortion, but especially when that conversation involves complicated intellectual arguments. We should never get so caught up in our ideas that we forget the people affected by them. This is not just true with the topic of rape, but also with any appeal to bodily rights. (Please see “Meeting the Relational Challenge” at www.jfaweb.org/body for more on this.)

I then shared two parables with Jack that indicate there’s something amiss with the Right to Refuse argument, even in the case of rape. I’ll share just a snapshot of one of them here, and you can see a full treatment of the approach I used with Jack in a paper we published online in April 2013: “De Facto Guardian and Abortion.” (You can find this paper, along with newer resources with alternative approaches at www.jfaweb.org/body.)

In the movie Up, Carl (inset image, white hair) sets his house free from the ground, flies thousands of feet in the air, and then hears a knock at the door. The young explorer Russell has stowed away on the porch and is about to fall off. Is Carl obligated to take him in? Should the law expect him to give Russell food and shelter? What if he has to use his body to pour water or cut bread for Russell? Does this change the obligation?

Jack agreed that Carl does have an obligation to use his body to support Russell’s life. He also agreed this should be a legal obligation. One explanation of this obligation is that Carl just happens to be, for whatever reason, the only person in the vicinity who can care for Russell. We called Carl a de facto guardian because it seems he has the same obligations as that of a parent or guardian, though temporarily.

The woman pregnant from rape is similarly situated to Carl. She didn’t ask to be in the situation where she would be the only person in the vicinity who could care for a child. But she is. If the de facto guardian principle holds, then, she has an obligation (and, as we argue, what should be a legal obligation) to give the child in her womb the food and shelter he needs. She has the obligation to care for the child even if she didn’t consent to that obligation, and even if she doesn’t feel like a parent. We, in turn, should surround her with support.

After writing this comment towards the end of our conversation, Jack told me that he now thought abortion should not be legal even in the case of rape.

After discussing this strongest version of the Right to Refuse argument and how it fared in light of our intuitions about parables like the Up story, Jack said, “Heck” and wrote on the Free Speech Board, “Life will force you into situations you don’t necessarily want but have to deal with nonetheless.” He then verbalized to me that abortion should not be legal, even early in the pregnancy and even in the case of rape.

I saw this third change as more significant than Jack’s previous changes of mind. Now I was satisfied that I had created a window so he could see clearly the very best arguments for legal abortion before rejecting them. Evidently I did a good job of presenting those arguments, because at one point Jack said I was making him start to waver and think abortion might be justified. As you can imagine, I created this window for Jack with some fear and trembling. Why risk someone wavering back toward the pro-choice position? Even worse, why risk someone becoming a more confident pro-choice advocate with better arguments?

There are two reasons my fears didn’t keep me from creating a window for Jack. First, truth is not fragile. It will shine through if we ask the right questions and apply our minds to the study of sound reasoning. Second, Jack is a human being who is intrinsically valuable. He’s not an opportunity to make a convert. He deserves my best efforts to create conversation that is both a mirror and a window.

- Steve Wagner, for the JFA Team

Note: Steve’s conversation with “Jack” took place in March 2013. This report was originally published later that year. Special thanks to John Michener of Oklahomans United for Life for his editing on this piece in 2013. This post has been updated in minor ways and can be shared via www.jfaweb.org/mirror-and-window.

Postscript

JFA’s “Stop and Think” Exhibit is reflected in the windows of a building at Colorado State University in 2016. In a way, JFA’s Exhibits also function as both a mirror and a window - reflecting back to people the reality of what their views entail and giving people insight into topics and ideas they may never have thought about. You can see all of JFA’s Exhibits at our Exhibits page.

Equal Rights (Instagram Links)

Rebecca Hotovy talks about the basis for equal rights with a pro-choice student at CSU. They discuss the logical consequences of two popular views. (Part 1 o...

Watch Rebecca Hotovy (Haschke) talk with a student at Colorado State University about the foundation for our equal rights. --- Read Outreach Stories: www.jfa...

Video: "Why Equal Rights?" (Outreach Clip)

Watch Rebecca Hotovy talk with a student at Colorado State University about the foundation for our equal rights.

What do you think of Rebecca’s reasoning?

Watch Rebecca Hotovy (Haschke) talk with a student at Colorado State University about the foundation for our equal rights. --- Read Outreach Stories: www.jfaweb.org/stories Ask About an Internship: www.jfaweb.org/internships Explore JFA's Guide for Pro-Life Students: www.jfaweb.org/students/ccc Video by: Genesis Media (www.genesismediasolutions.com)

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Click here for more dialogue examples involving the Equal Rights Argument.