Since I started reading and listening to ERI material, I have drastically changed my tune in discussing the abortion issue, as well as other issues I am passionate about fighting against (with sex trafficking, rape, terrorism, racism, and pornography being among them). I realize more and more with each interaction with pro-choice people that they actually care about women, they just have a different opinion on how to care about them. So, that's what I need to express that I care about in my dialogues with them, rather than completely ignoring the difficult situation that the woman is very likely to be in and zeroing in on the unborn child. (Yay for common ground!) I am asking more questions and have a more open-minded attitude towards other people's opinions. This has even helped me in my everyday conversations when petty disagreements might arise. My only issue is I feel that I get overzealous, and that I might juke people or simply overstep some boundaries prematurely.
I am a Christian as well as a pro-lifer, so I have also brought ERI discussion techniques into my conversations about religion in recent years. My goal is to re-brand pro-lifers, and Christians for that matter, as people who genuinely care about human life and who are willing to welcome people with diverse experiences and views into their friend group. This is actually something that I started trying to do in high school after a discussion with my dad about racism. We were talking about how people naturally group others into categories, which is fine as long as your groups don't negatively influence your views of others. Compare: "people at my church, people at my school, people in my neighborhood, my friends, and my family" vs. "My people (friends from school, church work, etc. and family), and "those other people (e.g. those I don't know, LGBTQ, the racially different, and pro-choicers)." The former acknowledges even people not in my friends and family groups as people from different places, while the latter identifies them mainly by labels of what they, I, or other people identify them as. While it's not wrong to acknowledge that you don't know people, that they have a different skin tone or sexual orientation, or that their political views differ, identifying people as just those particular things that make them different from you makes it very easy to exclude them and makes it difficult to love them because you get caught up in the whole "us" and "them" dynamic. I've found that half the battle in discussing any issue is eliminating the existence of your "those people" group, which I feel for the most part I have successfully done. I have two issues remaining: lack of knowledge and conveying it with good perspective (relatively easily remedied), and that I feel that I am very weird, to the level of being off-putting (not so easily fixed). Is there an article or podcast on how to avoid this?

I think the position Pro-Lifers should take is a philosophy of life, how does one reach happiness? What truly makes us happy? What interferes with our happiness? The LIfe Principles by Robert Spitzer, S.J., defines the human heart and the 4 levels of happiness. I realize this is an old post and this may be more mainstream now. God bless.

When did the author of this article ever say that women should never be punished for having an abortion? And how can you know what he thinks when you openly brag about not reading what he sends you?

Valid points. However, there will always be those who, while acknowledging these other atrocities, will always go and compare them to abortion, and /or even state that abortion is worse.
In fact a number of pro-lifers will claim that if abortion is eliminated, human trafficking, terrorism, discrimination and the like will follow.

As a formerly pro-choice person, I can also tell you that constantly turning your focus away from other super important justice issues like the environment, slavery, poverty, rape, etc. Degrades your credibility. Being pro-life is about WAY more than just abortion, and it wasn't until I was shown people who care about ALL parts of life - people who care about mothers as much as fetuses - that I was ready to begin to change my mind. It seems, to a pro-choice person, the ultimate in hypocrisy of ALL pro-lifers can talk about is fetuses. Please please remember that there are so many other issues related to life to talk about and frame abortion as one that is part of a larger picture - and explain that you're focussing on it because it's one of the biggest legal gaps still, because it's one you personally happen to feel particularly strongly about, because it's one that vets underemphased or overlooked. Etc. But first put it in a context, first acknowledge and exaim that you support women. That you support poverty reduction strategies even if you disagree on what is most effective. Because the main reason I was completely closed off to pro-life, and actually really angry about it, was I saw it as something that wanted to ignore all other issues in favour of abortion, even to the point of forgetting about the mothers or saying their lives matter LESS! (Feminists for life is one of my fave pages, they explain things in a way that worked really well for this formerly pro-choice person!)

Excellent points, all.

In my experience, the comparisons are not effective if used too soon in the conversation. I say that as one who has used them in the past. In order for the other person to truly understand such a comparison in the way that I mean it, we would first need to come to a mutual understanding of the humanity and personhood of the child in the womb, otherwise known as the fetus. If we don't both understand that at, we are just going to talk past each other and accomplish very little except to become very frustrated with each other. In my experiences on line, I've found that usually either the other person already agrees with me and I'm preaching to the choir, or else strongly opposes me and is hardened into that position to the point of refusing to be convinced regardless of how much evidence I present or how strong it is. For the second type of person, the comparisons are seen by them as invalid sensationalism, since they won't believe the baby, or fetus to them, is human. If I can convince them to see the humanity, then they will be able to understand the comparisons, but not until then.

Speaking as a pro-choicer who has had an abortion, the constant comparison of abortion to mass murders makes me think you guys aren't telling the truth when you say you don't want to prosecute women for murder under an abortion ban.

I agree that all deaths should be taken seriously as the tragedy they are. However, I do find it impossible to stop thinking about abortion precisely because I see it as no different than other cases of death.
The sex slavery thing bothers me on multiple levels. I want to end all the evil in the world. I am angry that it has been happening long before I existed and don't know why people tell me that there is nothing I can do. I get highly emotional about it and am glad I am behind a computer screen where they can't really see how I feel. I have to try to speak some truth into this world of lies.

Oh my gosh! AMEN!!! May I please share this on my blog?
Thank you so much for speaking out about this!!! Keep up the great work! :D

I love this piece.
It is true. One of the most painful things I hear over and over in pro-life logic is a repetition of comparison to genocide even when the logic is falling on the ears of someone who doesn't believe that fetuses are babies. If someone doesn't believe that a fetus is a baby, then your first job is to get to the root of that logic.
No walls are going to crumble without first knocking out the foundation.
If we keep comparing abortion to genocide when our audience doesn't think that they are people, we're just going to sound like idiots, making the same debate mistake over and over again.
Love the "Don't be weird." Wish that was every Pro-life advocate's motto.
Wonderful piece.

CBR and even JFA are known for displaying images of abortion victims next to images of Holocaust victims. Do you feel this is inappropriate and/or ineffective? Should these groups rethink their approach?

I believe thought provoking is good. It is not forceful, but it makes one think what is acceptable in their heart. I'm Christian and I know I am turned off when someone says forcefully that what they are saying is right or wrong. I walk away. If the issue is forced I tend to close my ears. But to raise questions to make them think for themselves what is right, or to look beyond society's ways. John haggee mission. Has a quote " if we can't declare someone dead until their heart stops beating; than why can't we declare them alive when it starts beating". This made me think further. I'm pro life but what is "my" reason to pro life. I believe God gave us a purpose and he is faithful to fulfill it. However, he gives us free will. He hopes that we will receive all he has for us. But sometimes we get scared dont we. I believe once the cells join it has a purpose. To grow to a baby with a beating heart and to do something wonderful like learn to walk. To love another. To feel joy to feel sadeness. To live. I have been assaulted. And although I am Pro-life I dont know what I would have done had I become pregnant from it. This is where compassion must outweigh our human sized opinions. An opinion is only a way for us to justify ourselves, no one else. Someone feeling immense shame from rape amd then carry a baby. Yes they could adopt it out. But if they feel judged, attacked, they will hide it and live in shame from something that was not their fault. And it is best to empower. That being God does not condemn his children we have no place to to condemn. Someone's choice from something they cannot understand but the person going through it. They feel demeaned as it is and to put guilt trips just causes more shame. If it has been done they need to heal and that can't happen if our society continues to shame the victim. Forcefulness causes cowering and turning away causing the exact problem you are trying to stop. Like I said I'm pro life but than that happened to me and I did think "what if I'm preganant" and I'm glad that I did not have to know what choice I would have made. But many have to make that choice and then shamed further because of it. We need to help them to heal and move forward and lift them from a place of shame to a place of hope.

My concern is that we are not disturbing and shocking enough to others. And who is being rude? What is “being rude”? The magnitude of worldwide Intrauterine Childslaughter dwarfs most genocides and wars combined. When we contemplate the horror of it, then this mass killing becomes the new archetype for human destruction, death , murder. How can we avoid comparing other evils to it?

I get the point that’s being made, but are there any times when it IS appropriate to compare abortion to other human injustices like slavery or the Holocaust? There are similarities between them and abortion so it seems like that would be a good way to make a point about how we dehumanize groups in order to justify abusing them. Or is it better to just keep the two separate?