{"id":24041,"date":"2014-02-05T07:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T14:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=24041"},"modified":"2015-01-19T13:35:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T20:35:33","slug":"march-for-life-discussion-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2014\/02\/05\/march-for-life-discussion-1\/","title":{"rendered":"March For Life Discussion: Better Communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I previously mentioned<\/a>, 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<\/a> in Washington DC.<\/p>\n

\"pro-life-vs-pro-choice\"<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Protestant Snowflakes<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

(The only people who think that the Church is uncertain in her teaching are certain<\/a> Catholic Politicians…)<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/a>. This is true\u00a0even for two who belong to the same denomination or even to the same congregation. Therefore, the only way to ascertain a\u00a0particular<\/em> Protestant Christian’s beliefs is to ask him.<\/p>\n

Pro-Choice Snowflakes<\/h2>\n

Like Protestants, those who are pro-choice can vary greatly in their beliefs…<\/p>\n

Some<\/strong> <\/em>will freely admit that human life has intrinsic value.
\nOthers<\/strong> <\/em>will deny this.<\/p>\n

Some<\/strong> <\/em>will agree that the fetus is a human life.
\nOthers<\/strong> <\/em>will deny this.<\/p>\n

Some<\/strong> <\/em>will say abortion should only be allowed in the first trimester.
\nOthers<\/strong> <\/em>will say that abortion should be allowed up until moments before birth.<\/p>\n

Some<\/strong> <\/em>will say that abortion is wrong and tragic, but a necessary evil.
\nOthers<\/strong> <\/em>will say that it’s the moral equivalent to having a mole removed
\n…<\/p>\n

The number of pro-choice positions are legion whereas the variation in the pro-life position is minimal.\u00a0The upshot of all this is that, quite often, the pro-lifer will incorrectly\u00a0assume<\/em>\u00a0that 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.<\/p>\n

Productive Dialogue<\/h2>\n

To help avoid this, I think that at the outset, we who are pro-life need patiently\u00a0to 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<\/em> is the argument that is actually being proposed<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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”<\/em><\/span>… 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<\/em> position at the outset.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[232,44,62,2969,2486,1728,1601],"class_list":["post-24041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-abortion","tag-communication","tag-facebook","tag-featured","tag-march-for-life-2014","tag-pro-choice","tag-pro-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/FeaturedProLifeProChoice.gif","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24041"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53988,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24041\/revisions\/53988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}