March For Life Discussion: Better Communication

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.

Protestant Snowflakes

Some of the conversation on the Facebook thread reminded me of the situation where Catholics and Protestants talk to one another about their respective faiths.

On the one hand, the Catholic position is clearly documented. If you want to know the Catholic position on a matter, just look in the Catechism. We also have a wealth of teaching on faith and morals from our 2,000 year history recorded in Council documents, Papal encyclicals etc.

(The only people who think that the Church is uncertain in her teaching are certain Catholic Politicians…)

In contrast, however, if you want to discover the Protestant position, it’s not so simple. Protestant Christians are like snowflakes – no two are the same, each holding to a varying matrix of beliefs. This is true even for two who belong to the same denomination or even to the same congregation. Therefore, the only way to ascertain a particular Protestant Christian’s beliefs is to ask him.

Pro-Choice Snowflakes

Like Protestants, those who are pro-choice can vary greatly in their beliefs…

Some will freely admit that human life has intrinsic value.
Others will deny this.

Some will agree that the fetus is a human life.
Others will deny this.

Some will say abortion should only be allowed in the first trimester.
Others will say that abortion should be allowed up until moments before birth.

Some will say that abortion is wrong and tragic, but a necessary evil.
Others will say that it’s the moral equivalent to having a mole removed
…

The number of pro-choice positions are legion whereas the variation in the pro-life position is minimal. The upshot of all this is that, quite often, the pro-lifer will incorrectly assume that a certain belief is held by the pro-choice person with whom he is speaking. I completely understand this, as I too have been guilty of it. I have sometimes made some incorrect preliminary worldview assumptions, in an effort to move the conversation speedily onto what I see as the core issue.

Productive Dialogue

To help avoid this, I think that at the outset, we who are pro-life need patiently to ask questions to help discern the exact ideology of the pro-choicer with whom we are speaking. We need to do this to make sure that the argument which we refute is the argument that is actually being proposed.

Additionally, the pro-choicer has to understand that the pro-choice movement is far from uniform in its worldview or reasoning. For example, in the Facebook thread, one pro-choice advocate wrote “We all know that [the unborn] must be human”… yet that is something which many of his fellow pro-choice brethren would vehemently deny and which they would use as a reason to justify abortion. Therefore, if dialogue is to be productive, I would suggest that it is imperative for the pro-choicer to clearly identify his particular position at the outset.

So, please forgive us pro-lifers when we make wrong assumptions. We’ll do our best to ask questions, but please understand that while our position is pretty clear cut, pro-choice views can vary greatly from one person to another.