A while back I advertised a debate between Trent Horn and Cecili Chadwick on the subject of abortion. During the exchange, Miss Chadwick said:
“I think it’s really interesting that every time I have been asked to debate this issue I have been debating a man…”
Trent’s response to this was rather spot-on, but I wanted to advertise an upcoming debate where Processor Chadwick will be debating with a woman! On 27th October, Miss Chadwick will be in a formal debate with my friend Timmerie. All the details are in the Facebook event below:
There have been a lot of posts on Facebook recently about abortion, particular with the recent announcement by Bill and Melinda Gates. To close things up I’d just like to share a post by my friend Brock, entitled “Why I am Pro-Life”:
There are three upcoming talks this summer at Santa Sophia: “How to be Persuasively Pro-life”, “What were the Crusades?”and “Mary, The Mother Of God – What’s All The Fuss About?” I love Catholic Answers, but their social media presence is pretty terrible. So, in the absence of seeing it anywhere else online, here’s a link to the upcoming events this summer in San Diego:
Last week Trent Horn from Catholic Answers engaged in an abortion debate with Professor Cecili Chadwick. The title of the debate was “Should abortion be legal?”.
The debate was at California State University San Marcos and I managed to attend. In my “Drafts” folder I had begun a short review of the event prepared, but I saw yesterday that the video of the debate was already up on YouTube!
I found Professor Chadwick’s position rather problematic, particularly given what she was willing to admit concerning unborn. I also found it a little frustrating how, in her responses, she regularly presented false dilemmas, as though one cannot be both against poverty AND abortion. But rather than flesh out my review, I’d simply invite you to watch the debate and reach your own conclusions.
Today I’m continuing my series of posts in response to the Facebook discussion a couple of weeks ago concerning the March For Life.
In my previous entry I briefly looked at what I think can be done to raise the standard of dialog between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. I would now like to start looking at some of the particular issues which were raised during the exchange. Today I would like to focus upon the opening comment from a former schoolmate:
“I kinda just wish people would stop telling other people how to live their lives….I’m pro-CHOICE, not pro-telling-people-what-to-do….”
As a pro-lifer, you hear sentiments similar to the one expressed above with considerable regularity and, on the surface, such a position seems extremely commendable. In fact, it is one of the sacrosanct secular doctrines in contemporary culture.
I think that respecting other people’s opinion is a good thing, I do. I mean, nobody likes to be told what to do, right? However, there are some immediate problems here. For a start, the statement self-refuting. As soon as you tell someone that they should mind their own business, you’re attempting, at least in some measure, to impose your own will on another person. That means you’re breaking your own rule and not minding your own business!
In the remainder of this post I would like to look at whether the live-and-let-live ideal is consistently applied…
As I previously mentioned, over the next few days I’m going to be publishing some posts in response to a discussion which took place on my Facebook wall while I was at the March For Life in Washington DC.
Some of my friends had reacted negatively to the fact that I was at the March, while others defended my presence at the demonstration, as well as the pro-life position in general.
As I sat in Ronald Reagan Airport at 1am, catching up on this Facebook thread, it was clear that there had been a certain amount of miscommunication between my friends. Now, I think a certain amount of miscommunication is somewhat inevitable, but I would suggest that we can be proactive in ensuring the discussion is productive. This is the subject that I’d like to address in this post.
As my friends (and Twitter followers!) will know, I was in Washington DC last week for the March For Life. While I was there, I posted the following meme on this blog:
The blog entry in which the picture was posted was shared on Facebook and received a certain amount of negative feedback from some of my friends. A lively discussion ensued. Since I had quite a full itinerary while on the East Coast, I didn’t really have much time to monitor the conversation thread over the course of the week.
My final night in Washington DC concluded with an Audrey Assad concert and a night of swing dancing, after which my mate John dropped me off at Reagan Airport to catch my 6:30am flight home. Now with some time on my hands, I was able to review the Facebook discussion thread…
Coming a little late to the party, it was clear that some tempers were already frayed. Although I offered a few comments on the thread, I decided that it would be good to sit down and write a series of blog posts, addressing some of the features of the discussion and some of the issues which were raised.
I’ll be posting these posts over the next few days…
Last week 
