I saw this post on Josh Brahm’s blog and had to blog on it. It shows the kind of relationship that leads to a changed mind.
Excerpt:
I want to bring relational apologetics to the pro-life movement. I’ve written and spoken previously about my dear friend Deanna Young. I’d encourage you to check out one of those two links to get the beginning of the story that I’m going to continue here. I’m so excited to tell you why Deanna now calls herself pro-life.
In case you didn’t click either of those links, Deanna was a pro-choice, atheist lesbian in Canada who befriended me in February 2013, through a YouTube message. Deanna was one of the most intelligent pro-choice bloggers I’d ever read. We exchanged nearly 120 philosophical emails, then started Skyping together.
I’m eager to share with you how my relationship with Deanna has progressed and the ways that her thinking has changed, but there’s a danger in this. It’s possible that some people would read this and interpret it as me telling you about a project of mine. It’s very important to me that you know that Deanna is not an object to me, a mind to be changed so that I can get another notch on my pro-life belt.
I have no shame in telling you that I love Deanna.
[…]When I say that I love Deanna, I mean what Jason Lepojärvi means when he defined love this way:
Love says that it is good that you exist and insofar as I am able I will contribute to your happiness, your existence, your flourishing.
Some of my pro-choice friends have not changed their thinking about abortion very much, but Deanna has. I want to share with you some of the changes in her thinking. Don’t read these as the reasons I’m friends with Deanna. Deanna will always be my friend, regardless of her views on abortion, her religion or her sexuality.
[…]Deanna would tell you that two things were necessary conditions for her conversion: rigorous philosophical arguments and a loving friendship with someone on the other side. The intellectual arguments were very important. I haven’t written very much about our initial email exchanges yet, but we got very philosophical, going back and forth on issues like bodily rights arguments, rape, the concept of intrinsic human value, concepts of harm and taking away the dignity of people in temporary comas, moral objectivism, utilitarianism, stem cell research, the “after-birth abortion” paper, and the use of graphic pictures.
It was through those lengthy emails that Deanna and I first became close. And after Deanna believed that most of her philosophical arguments had been defeated by better arguments, she completed her conversion upon realizing that a pro-life person loved her, even while she was an actively pro-choice blogger. I took my cue from Jesus, who, while I was yet a sinner, loved me anyway, and adopted me. (Romans 5:8.)
In the rest of the article he talks about their conversations about various arguments like the Judith Jarvis Thomson violinist argument.
I don’t think this would work with just any pro-choice person, you would need someone smart to argue her view strongly and have it answered strongly. I think when you get two smart people together for a long period of time, and there is mutual respect being built up, that’s when changing a person’s mind becomes possible.
I believe in one-on-one mentoring of people who are engaged in finding the truth about the issues that divide us. But I don’t know if I would be brave enough to form a loving friendship with someone so far on the other side. I would like to be able to do that, but it’s just really scary unless you are sure the other person can tolerate your honest views. I do believe in his definition of love, but it’s hard to find someone same who is very different from me. I think it’s easier with men than women, for a man.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Excessive bluntness warning.
Either someone is willing to consider that all humans have a right to not be killed at will– even if it’s handy, even if they’re small– or they don’t.
The pro-abort side (as with slavery, those who wouldn’t personally do so but want it to be legal are definitely in the “pro” camp) must either deny the basic biology that a newly conceived human is alive and a human, or hold that some humans can be killed at will.
Some will try to equivocate between killing an adult who has chosen to do something– be a soldier, commit a death-worthy crime, attempt to harm me or mine– and “being small and dependent.”
Doesn’t change anything.
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That’s why it remains one of the most hotly contended points on the issue, viz. at what point a fetus is an individual with rights.
Pro-choice continues to insist they demonstrate or logically argue that a fetus isn’t a “human” in the sense of having the rights of one that is biologically detached from the mother and present in the world in a physically distinct and relatively autonomous way.
This is an example of where approaching the argument in terms of classing pro-choice defenders as murderers (whether a morally accurate position or not) is ineffectual in terms of persuasion or in establishing the correctness of the pro-life position.
It’s also irrelevant. The question isn’t whether they’re murderers. That question answers itself to the satisfaction of all parties if the more basic issue is addressed (viz, (a) is this a “human”, and (b) can we define and demonstrate it as such that is owed equal rights — or at least an equal right to life — as the other humans we admit rights for).
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That’s not an argument about who is a human, that’s about what humans have rights.
Yes, they’re using “human” in the sense of “person” or “personhood.” It’s a semantic trick.
Some will even admit they want to pick what humans have the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
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Definitely “possible” to have a civil discussion about abortion (or any other heated topic), as this article shows, but it is practically very difficult because what one needs for it — the right attitude on both sides — is very tough to find. Indeed it’s often just as difficult to find the right attitude from the pro-life person as from the pro-choice person.
It takes more than, or perhaps I should say even something *else* besides a “smart” person. I have a LOT of genuinely smart friends who I cannot have a civil, reasonable discussion with because they have a preset idea of the *character* of the person or side who holds the opposing view. (Again, this happens with people on both sides.)
When you’re not willing to allow, for the sake of argument, the possibility of being wrong, or even recognizing the valid arguments from an opposing side, or even willing to allow for, at least for argument’s sake, the same basic good intentions of both sides, there isn’t any dialogue, and more importantly, you leave yourself open to making invalid, fallacious arguments.
Especially once you categorize the other side as having some kind of purposeful evil intention (whether correct or not), dialogue and an atmosphere conducive to logic are done. Any shade of ad hominem (which these arguments tend to drift toward or even start as) erodes the viability of any discussion almost irretrievably.
The podcast you posted recently, WK, with that pro-life apologist is a great example of how to approach a debate, and specifically combative debaters. That isn’t a guarantee of a civil debate, because such a result is ALWAYS dependent on both sides, but, as he says, it at least guarantees you won’t be the problem.
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I have had a handful of productive, honest, and rational discussions about abortion with pro-aborts. There are a few out there who don’t turn every discussion into a rabid, insult-slinging hysteria. Not many, but a few. I don’t know that I’ve changed any minds completely, but I have managed to get a couple of people to think about the issue differently and admit to some of my points. That’s progress.
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Agreed. I think, in the end, it depends on the type of person who one is speaking to. If one or both sides lack any rational basis for believing their position (say, if they merely subscribe to empathy ethics or are in the thrall of peer-pressure) the whole discussion tends to degenerate quickly into ad-hominem and general abuse. I’ve seen this happen to both sides, sadly.
I’m really delighted for both Josh and Deanna though; its rare that a real, intelligent friendship can be struck up across the void. =)
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Didn’t I kind of say all this already? ;) I think you’re both spot on. If we relinquish the synthetic obligation to change minds (or hearts) and leave that to the Holy Spirit, our jobs become easier. The pro-life apologist WK posted about a bit back had this same attitude. His expressed goal was not to change their minds, but to just get them to sincerely consider logical responses to the critical questions of the issue.
And yes, unfortunately the closed-mindedness and belligerence happens on both sides of this and any other issue.
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I think what Josh Brahm did is absolutely necessary in today’s world if we wish to save society and save souls. We have to engage in loving conversation, see and serve the Person of Jesus Christ in someone who is completely on the other side, pro-choice, pro-SSM, pro-euthanasia. But at the same time I realize what a miracle this relationship became because I have tried engaging people in the opposite camp on numerous occasions in loving conversation and what usually happens is the other soul becomes upset and ends the conversation. They are not ready to listen. But I don’t give up. I keep praying for these people and I hope some day someone else will get through. God bless you. Susan Fox http://www.christsfaithfulwitness.com
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In my experience, no
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A couple of side issues of this “love/friendship” that was able to convert a practitioner of death, to chose life.
1. The obvious male/female relationship between the two debaters. In today’s culture, most Christian men are unwilling to pursue any kind of “relationship” if that’s the correct word with any woman. Lots of cultural reeling in that new segregation, and as a woman I understand that. HOWEVER, women, just like men are more than Freudian Sex Seekers as their purpose in life. In my own ministry of trying to return God to the public square dialog in my own community, men with advice I desperately could use are unwilling to respond for fear of “enticement” that would derail THEIR ministry. I
So, maybe that is more about them than it is about me. But, an interesting dynamic of the success noted in the post.
2. Which gets me to the second point – fear is the underlying evil root of abortion. Fear of being left by a man in a state of complete vulnerability. Now as believers we know perfect love casts out fear. hint – that’s how the guy was able to reach the pro-abortion gal. As I advise young girls, any pro-abortion MAN is NOT marriage material. Period. Of course Bill Clinton and other womanizers are pro-abortion…hello??? It’s in THEIR self-interest….so don’t be a useful idiot because of your FEAR of abandonment. All those magazine covers are nothing more than Temple Prostitutes obscuring the horror that is casual sex. Fear of God is there for your own protection and well being, not a guardrail to be abandoned in order to show your “adultness”. Perfect love casts out fear.
So, when the pro-abortion gal realized that perfect love existed – even from a MAN – without an angle or agenda of the Freudian purpose of life is simply sex, then her fear of abandonment became a moot point. She was then able to take the personal emotion out of the equation and look at the horror rightly. Fear causes people do the most inhumane things imaginable…because what they fear is even worse in their mind than the horror before their very eyes. It’s Orwell’s Room 101…YOUR OWN FEAR put into action.
Are we prepared to use our apologetics to LOVE our neighbor as we love ourselves?
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