Rebekah Dyer
How Feet Work Changed Four Volunteers
How Feet Work Changed Four Volunteers
Andrea Thenhaus
"This Conversation Has Opened My Eyes."
"This Conversation Has Opened My Eyes."
Justice For All
Spring Update
Spring Update
Justice For All
A Conversation, a Seed Planted, and a Life Saved
A Conversation, a Seed Planted, and a Life Saved
Kaitlyn Donihue
Bridge to Healing
Bridge to Healing

A Response to the Strongest Violinist

Here's a paper I originally posted back in April 2013:

"De Facto Guardian and Abortion: A Response to the Strongest Violinist"  

Ernest Hébert, "Le Petit Violoneux Endormi" (1883), Musée Hébert

Ernest Hébert, "Le Petit Violoneux Endormi" (1883), Musée Hébert

It begins in a "Cabin in a Blizzard," where Mary finds herself stranded with a newborn that's not her own, and ends with a short reference to one Carl and an annoying "wilderness explorer" named Russell (from the movie, Up).  In between these thought experiments, we attempt to describe and give a suggested account for our intuitions about our obligations to children.  We believe that account sheds light on and casts doubt on the viability (pun intended) of the strongest version of Judith Jarvis Thomson's Violinist Argument from her 1971 "A Defense of Abortion."  We invite you to wrestle with that argument and with our response to it.  Share comments below.

Notes: 

  • This paper was originally posted on April 13, 2013 at the Life Report website (no longer active).

  • I wrote the paper, but many others deserve credit for helping crystallize the ideas in the paper and for supplying some of the raw material for the central thought experiment. See the preface and the footnotes for my attempt to give credit where credit is due.

  • The main url for discussion of the paper, www.jfaweb.org/DFG, is now being directed to this post.

  • July 28, 2021 Update: We’ve recently updated our bodily rights resources at www.jfaweb.org/body. There you can find the De Facto Guardian paper along with many other resources and other approaches to bodily rights articles, including:

Note: This post was updated on Dec. 14, 2015 with the link to the Tony George article. It was updated on Sept. 25, 2019 with the link to the ERI Video featuring Timothy Brahm with his 12-minute response to the strongest violinist. It was updated again on July 28, 2021, changing the way the links were presented and adding a button to a newly-reorganized Bodily Rights Resources page at www.jfaweb.org/body.

From One to a Crowd

Conversations: September 2015

Phase 1

Navigating a one-on-one conversation about a controversial subject can be difficult.  Now add nine more people with varying opinions.  Is it possible for the conversation to remain productive, or at least civil?  At our University of Arizona outreach in February 2015, I watched a one-on-one conversation transform into a conversation with a crowd that lasted three hours.

“Michael” (Phase 1) approached me in order to share his view that he didn’t believe life began at conception.  Overhearing the conversation, two other students wandered over to listen in (Phase 2).  Then two more students arrived and began peppering me with their opinions and thoughts, including multiple questions related to their disagreements regarding what they had heard me discuss with Michael.

At this point there was no way to answer every student’s questions at the same time (not to mention that every response I shared prompted more questions).   In order to respect Michael, and not forget him in the midst of this developing crowd, I asked a favor of all five students.  I said something like,

Phase 2

“You are all bringing up important topics and questions to cover.  I want to answer all of them, but I want to respect each of you by doing it in an orderly fashion so that we don’t miss anything.  Here are the concerns I have heard:

  • What about poverty?  What about women who don’t have the means to care for a child?

  • What about women who already have too many children?

  • What about a woman who has been violated (rape)?

  • Women’s liberty:  Doesn’t the pro-life view violate our liberties?

  • The unborn aren’t human so shouldn’t abortion only be illegal after we become human?

  • Men shouldn’t have an opinion in this matter.  It’s a woman’s body. So it’s her choice.

“I need your help though.  Please help me remember each of these questions if I forget one.  If you have another question, let me know so that we can add it to the list.  I am going to start by answering one of Michael’s questions first, the one about women who don’t seem to have the financial means to care for a child.”

Phase 3

In the next three hours I witnessed something beautiful unfold.  Because each of the students knew that I thought addressing each question was important, they patiently waited their turn. As more and more students wandered over to listen in (with most of them eventually joining in) each one witnessed a particular type of conversation taking place:  It was a conversation in which disagreement was readily present but anger was absent.  People were asking questions to seek clarification.  People were actively listening to understand each other.  People where not interrupting each other.

This respectful conversation set a precedent, and this precedent caused a second beautiful response from the students.  Newcomers recognized the calm demeanor of those who disagreed with me and quickly followed suit.  So much so, that they would even raise their hands (see Phase 3 above) and wait for me to call on them before sharing thoughts or asking questions.

At one point in the conversation I was able to ask the students present how they felt after the past hour of conversation.  One of the students had changed his mind about when we are biologically human.  Another student felt that abortion should still be legal but not in as many cases as she had originally thought.  A third student commented that, although she was still pro-choice, she had never heard these pro-life arguments and they made sense.  Later that day a fourth student returned to tell me that although he is pro-life he had never witnessed a conversation about abortion like that one.  He was amazed by the response of the students.

One pro-choice student who joined the group conversation had spent two hours in conversation with me the day prior.  During the group discussion he responded to several of the pro-choice arguments using the same pro-life responses I had shared with him the day before.  Although he stated he was still pro-choice, it was clear that he now also saw the validity in some of the arguments I had proposed to him.

Thank you for helping JFA turn the debate about abortion into a productive dialogue by respecting the dignity of the unborn while also respecting the dignity of each person in the conversation.

Lightbulb in Los Angeles

Impact Report: August 2015

I almost didn’t talk to her.  It was the morning of the second day of our outreach event at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).  “Jenny” was standing across the walkway, and I was uncertain if she had seen our “Should Abortion Remain Legal?” poll table question.  She appeared to be lost in thought, and I didn’t want to be a bother to her.  I immediately began an internal argument with myself about all of the reasons why I shouldn’t talk with her.

CK’s story took place near this series of poll tables on UCLA’s Bruin Walk.

The longer Jenny stood there, the more I felt like I should ignore my fear of interrupting her day.  I approached her and asked if she had an opinion on our question.  At first she seemed hesitant to talk to me, but as the conversation continued, I learned that Jenny did have an opinion.  She believed that if a child was going to be born into poverty that abortion would be justified.  I listened to her concern and acknowledged that growing up in poverty would be extremely challenging.  In response to her concern, I used a conversational tool that we teach at Justice For All (JFA) called “Trot Out the Toddler” (TOTT)* to help refocus the conversation on the central question, “What is the unborn?”  After discussing the humanity of the unborn, Jenny agreed that abortion was wrong in most cases, but she still had one very serious concern.

Jenny asked me about the issue of a woman having to care for a child conceived in rape.  I took great care to share just how evil I think rape is and how we need to take better care of the woman in that situation.  After spending a significant amount of time talking with Jenny, I shared another belief that I hold strongly.  I said, “You know, often when women are in the midst of an unwanted pregnancy, pro-life people come alongside them and say, ‘Don’t get an abortion!’  What if, instead, we said, ‘Let me help you’?  I think we need to do a better job of coming alongside the woman and the unborn child inside of her.”

Marcos Espinoza (center), a staff member with Right to Life of Central California, interacts with UCLA students in front of the JFA Exhibit on Bruin Plaza.

After a short pause, Jenny looked at me with eyes wide.  She said, “You just turned on the lightbulb for me.  I realized we've been talking about the woman, but there is a child involved in this, too.”  She then asked me what she could do about abortion.  She went over to our “Should Abortion Remain Legal?” poll table and signed the side that said “No.”  I gave her the JFA Exhibit Brochure and showed her how to share it with a friend.  I also gave her the contact information for a local pregnancy care center so that if she ever encounters someone considering an abortion, she herself could say, “Let me help you.”

I’m so thankful that God enabled me to face my fear and talk to Jenny.  The fruit of that conversation has shown me how a small step can accomplish a lot.  I pray that God continues to strengthen her to take a stand for unborn children. 

-CK Wisner, for the JFA Team

* Scott Klusendorf (Life Training Institute) gave us our initial formulation of “Trot Out the Toddler.” For a step-by-step explanation and dialogue excerpts, see www.jfaweb.org/tott.

Comment

In this Impact Report, JFA trainer CK Wisner tells the story of one of her conversations from JFA’s UCLA outreach in June.  What I love about CK’s description of this conversation is that we get to see the specific decisions CK made at different points which helped one UCLA student change her mind about abortion. 

This is a different kind of conversation, the sort that 49 staff members and volunteers created many times over during two days at UCLA.  Among those volunteers were mission trip participants from Houston, Nebraska, Central California, and Kansas, who have already taken what they learned back to their communities.  Thanks for helping JFA train pro-life advocates to create conversations that are changing minds and engaging hearts in Los Angeles and beyond.

- Stephen Wagner, Executive Director

Can Ten Seconds Change Minds?

steve_car_2.jpg

It all started at 1:40 AM at a stoplight on Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa Beach, California.  My July newsletter tells what happened there and how one good thing that came of it was a sound bite that is still making an impact on how people think about abortion 13 years later.  The short letter, Ten Seconds Can Change Minds, includes stories of real conversations from JFA trainers Jeremy Gorr and CK Wisner.

Here are a few additional notes on the topic of the letter:

  1. See more of the conversation with the women at the stoplight in an excerpt from my original write-up on the incident (a one-page reduction of my August 2002 newsletter): Got Ten Seconds?
  2. Admittedly, there are some limitations to the "10-Second Pro-Life Apologist."  Even though it has a logical structure similar to a syllogism, it shouldn't be expressed by pro-lifers as an air-tight argument to which no responses can be made.  I use the "10-Second Pro-Life Apologist" instead in the same way a soccer team uses a kick-off.  The sound bite just gets things started.  It helps me to put something on the table and then shut my mouth to allow the other person to talk, to respond, to think with me.  In this sense, it is purposefully incomplete.  It invites questions.  So, I suggest to pro-life advocates to take care in the amount of weight they give to these three sentences, expressed on their own, without clarification.  In other words, don't toss the "10-Second Pro-Life Apologist" out there as if just in saying these three sentences, it should silence all debate.  No, on the contrary, it is meant simply to get productive dialogue started.  One of the main limitations is the fact that these three sentences only implicitly make reference to the fact that the unborn is a whole organism.  In my view, this is an essential clarification pro-life advocates must make in their conversations about the unborn.  So, the unborn is not just living (like any cells or tissue of any species) and is not just human (like HeLa cells) but it is a special sort of living, human tissue that is integrated and organized in a specific way - the same way that you and I are integrated and organized, as a whole organism.
  3. To illustrate the above point, note, for example, the way in which PZ Meyers misunderstood the intended purpose in using a version of the "10-Second Pro-Life Apologist" by Kristan Hawkins, the President of SFLA; note also the detailed critique of the PZ Meyers piece by Clinton Wilcox.
  4. Exercise 3 in JFA's Interactive Guide teaches you to use the "10-Second Pro-Life Apologist" in conversation.  You can see how I would clarify the "organism" point (see Note #1 above) in the "Imitate" section of Exercise 3.  Get the Interactive Guide here.
  5. If you’ve enrolled in our “Learn at Home” program by completing the exercises at www.jfaweb.org/learn-at-home, the "10-Second Pro-Life Apologist" should look familiar to you.  It comprises the first ten seconds of the one-minute sound bite featured in Step 2.
  6. The 10-Second Pro-Life Apologist has been referenced and utilized by many pro-life advocates and organizations, including SFLA, Trent Horn, Amy Hall, Brett Kunkle, and Josh Brahm.
  7. Has the "10-Second Pro-Life Apologist" helped you in your conversations about abortion?  Share your story in the comments below.

Note: This post originally appeared at "Human Beings Matter More," the personal blog of Steve Wagner, JFA's Executive Director.

We Can't Wait (in More Ways than One)

Amanda with Kim's Baby

Amanda with Kim's Baby

After twenty minutes with a JFA trainer, Amanda shared a JFA Brochure with a friend who decided not to kill her child ("Lucy" in the photo).  After one hour in a presentation with a JFA trainer last month, Emma and her sister went to talk to kids in the park.  Their mom said,

They said that a few of the things you said gave them the confidence to go ahead and give it a try.

In my June letter you can read how these stories remind me that we cannot wait for everyone to find two days to participate in JFA's flagship training program, and that everyone can benefit from two additional offerings: our presentations and our new "Learn at Home" program.  JFA can't wait to use these opportunities to activate...More Advocates.

Or, don't wait to read the letter. Go directly to our new "Learn at Home" program.  In just one hour, it will equip you to...Change Minds on Abortion.

JFA @ UCLA

2015-06-02-16h36m51a.jpg

Here's the scene at UCLA's Bruin Walk on JFA's second day of outreach in early June.  JFA staff and volunteers set up five tables inviting people to dialogue with us (one of them is down the walk to the left of the frame).  As you can see, one-to-one conversations were happening at every table.  JFA was invited by the Live Action club at UCLA. On the first day, JFA staff and volunteers created dialogue with the JFA Exhibit on Bruin Plaza (the first time in that location since 2003).  The picture below includes an interesting juxtaposition of the facts about abortion (shown in a photo on the JFA Exhibit) with a common viewpoint in defense of abortion (expressed on JFA's Free Speech Board).  You can see the JFA Exhibit panel with the picture of abortion more clearly here.

See more of the UCLA outreach, including more pictures from the first day on Bruin Plaza, by clicking the pictures in this post or by clicking here.

"I Couldn't Stop..."

Most of us have fears about discussing abortion.  Corrie was no different.  She recently attended a mission trip that JFA led for Christian Heritage Academy's Salt and Light program.  Here's what she said about the outreach to the University of Oklahoma:

I was terrified to talk to anyone, and made a goal to talk to just one person.  Once I talked to one, I couldn't stop.  I realized they're just people.

In this month's Impact Report, we hear from one of Corrie's classmates and from students in Arizona and Nebraska, who through their experiences with JFA also became...

"Ready and Eager for the Next Conversation"

Other JFA Links:  About JFA     Donate Recent Event Pics & Updates

JFA Team at the University of Kansas (and Benedictine College, etc)

KUSpring15_727
KUSpring15_727

The JFA Team just returned from two days of outreach to the University of Kansas, along with seminar events at Benedictine College and a community seminar in Lawrence, Kansas.  The events are illustrated in the gallery below, which you can access by clicking the picture or link.  In the picture below, JFA training specialist Jeremy Gorr discusses the JFA brochure with a student.  Click the gallery for other pictures of trainers in action, free speech board responses, and conversations!

Picture Gallery: Click the picture above or this link to see more pictures from KU.