Attitude Can Make or Break the Conversation

Recently, veteran JFA trainer Rebecca Hotovy found an unsent email in her drafts folder. It contained a nearly complete newsletter detailing a conversation from years back. I was so taken with it, I wanted to share it with you. (Rebecca still coaches other JFA speakers part-time during brief breaks from her full-time job as mom to two precious boys.)

We know this story definitely happened at the University of Oklahoma, and we think it happened around 2015. Whatever the date, the story beautifully illustrates the power of JFA’s dialogue approach, the power of a few carefully crafted questions asked with an open heart, and the way in which our attitude has the power to make or break a conversation. - Steve Wagner, Executive Director

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Impact Report, June 2022

Rebecca Hotovy, JFA Trainer Certification Coach and Trainer Emeritus

 Several years ago at the University of Oklahoma (OU), as I stood next to the large exhibit, a young man approached me. I’ll call him Chris. Confident that abortion was a woman’s right, Chris started to explain why he felt abortion should remain legal. Several feet from me stood another man, likely twenty to thirty years older than Chris. Although this older man was not a volunteer with Justice For All, he held a pro-life view. He was close enough to hear my conversation with Chris, and as the conversation continued, he listened in.

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Rebecca (center) interacts with an OU student in 2015 near a small version of the JFA Exhibit.

In the first few minutes of that discussion, I took time to figure out the reasoning behind Chris’s belief that abortion should remain legal. Without first understanding why Chris held his view or how he came to the conclusion that abortion should remain legal, I knew I wouldn’t be able help him see errors in his reasoning. I was also aware that blatantly pointing out any errors may upset him enough that he would end the conversation. If he didn’t end the conversation but he stayed and continued talking, it would likely make him put up barriers of self-defense that would prevent him from wanting to listen to the ideas being presented, even if he was physically present and talking. Sadly, I’ve seen this happen many times – two people begin to dialogue about a controversial subject, quickly start defending their own positions, and turn a conversation into two monologues because they feel offended. If they feel offended for whatever reason, they may hear words coming from the other person’s mouth, but they don’t listen to the meaning of the message of those words.

In my conversation with Chris, over time it became clear that he did not believe the unborn was biologically human. When I felt I had built a good rapport with him, I allowed our conversation to take a turn. I started asking questions not just to discover his reasoning in defense of legal abortion but also to challenge that reasoning. At this point in the conversation I knew he would welcome the challenge because he could see that I didn’t desire to push my agenda down his throat. The challenge questions I asked were exactly the ones we train participants to ask when they attend the Abortion: From Debate to Dialogue seminar. I said something like:

Rebecca: Chris, do you mean that you don’t believe the unborn is biologically a human being or that the unborn isn’t a human being that deserves the same rights as you and I do?

Chris: Oh, it’s not biologically a human being at all. It’s just a clump of cells in those early stages.

Rebecca: If I could offer evidence for why the unborn is a human being, would you mind?

Chris: Sure. Go ahead.

Rebecca: If the unborn is growing, isn’t it alive?

Chris: [pausing and then slowly nodding his head] Yeah, sure I can agree with that.

Rebecca: If the unborn has human parents, isn’t it human?

Chris: [pausing and pondering the question with a slight grin on his face] Yes.

It was his answer to my third question, though, that threw me for a loop.

Rebecca: And living human beings, like you and me, are valuable, aren’t they?

Chris: Oh my gosh. Yes.

There was another moment of silence as he continued to ponder the questions I had just asked that laid out a defense for the humanity of the unborn. We stood in silence for a while longer. Then he said something like:

Chris: Wow, okay, so I need to think through this more.

This was so unexpected to me because most students I talk to do not agree with each of these questions. They have all sorts of creative ideas to share, such as “Well, fire grows, and it’s not alive” or “Yeah, well a clump of cells might be alive and have human DNA, but that doesn’t mean it is a human being...Are tumors human beings?” or “Sperm are alive and have human DNA. Are all sperm valuable, too?”

Chris didn’t have any retorts like these. He simply agreed that the unborn was a human being.

Just as I thought the conversation was going really well, it took a turn for the worse. The pro-life man who had been listening in stepped close enough to us to join the conversation, turned to Chris, and snootily remarked, “She got ya! Didn’t she‽”

My heart dropped to my stomach. I had taken such care not to make Chris feel like I was attacking his position and to make him feel comfortable sharing his thoughts with me, and in less than three seconds someone who claimed to be pro-life obliterated all my efforts. Chris was as shocked as I was. His face showed it. He also became really nervous and started stumbling over his words.

One would think that I would easily become frustrated with people who hold beliefs against the dignity and sanctity of human life, but in this instance I became frustrated instead with this person who was like-minded to me in certain ways but didn’t realize the importance of treating the human standing in front of us with respect. Fortunately, I was able to jump back into the conversation, regain a good rapport with Chris, direct the conversation away from the “got ya” remark, and help him feel less nervous.

In hindsight, I now take another step back and realize that the art of learning to dialogue is a journey for everyone – the pro-life advocate and the pro-choice advocate alike. Prior to my training and work with Justice For All, if I had been that pro-life person standing there listening in on the conversation, I may have made a similar remark. Early on I didn’t understand that the way I shared the truth about the unborn could actually affect whether that truth helped pro-choice advocates change their minds. Thank you, Justice For All, for your gift of teaching me the beauty of dialoguing in love!

Note: Yes, that’s an intentional interrobang in the fourth from the last paragraph. Learn more about this controversial punctuation mark through this engaging podcast episode from 99 Percent Invisible.

Video: "Why Equal Rights?" (Outreach Clip)

Watch Rebecca Hotovy talk with a student at Colorado State University about the foundation for our equal rights.

What do you think of Rebecca’s reasoning?

Watch Rebecca Hotovy (Haschke) talk with a student at Colorado State University about the foundation for our equal rights. --- Read Outreach Stories: www.jfaweb.org/stories Ask About an Internship: www.jfaweb.org/internships Explore JFA's Guide for Pro-Life Students: www.jfaweb.org/students/ccc Video by: Genesis Media (www.genesismediasolutions.com)

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Click here for more dialogue examples involving the Equal Rights Argument.

You Can't Learn This In a Classroom

Introductory Note:  JFA training is not just theoretical.  JFA volunteers are able to immediately put what they learn into practice.  Once equipped through a JFA seminar, volunteers start their practical training by watching their JFA mentors in conversation, observing how they use JFA dialogue skills with pro-choice advocates.  After that they create their own conversations alongside a JFA mentor who can offer feedback and support.  Volunteers are enthusiastic about this unique, active learning experience, one that can’t be replicated in a classroom.  In this Impact Report, featuring conversation stories from Rebecca Hotovy and Paul Kulas, you'll see how JFA mentors supported outreach volunteers at our recent University of Kansas (KU) outreach, praying for them, modeling good dialogue, and participating with them in their first conversations.  - Steve Wagner, Executive Director

I was mentoring a young woman named Maya, the president of the Jayhawks for Life club that had invited JFA to the University of Kansas (KU).  I had been praying for her throughout the trip because I wanted her to be able to be encouraged by the conversations that she was going to witness while we were mentoring her.  She’s someone who really desires to go out and create conversation. 

Maya (right) talks to a fellow student at JFA’s Art of Life Exhibit outreach at the University of Kansas, an outreach she helped to organize.  See the JFA Photo Archive for more photos from the KU outreach event.

One of the first conversations she witnessed was actually one that she started.  She saw a young man, “Will,” standing next to the Art of Life Exhibit, and when she realized that he was just standing there looking and that no one else on our staff was able to engage him, she walked up to him to ask him what he thought.  When she started to ask him questions, Will revealed that he actually didn’t know yet what his thoughts were about abortion.

She didn’t know where to go from there, so she asked if she could introduce him to someone who could guide him through the pro-life position.  Once she found out that Will was open to a dialogue with someone, she ran and grabbed me, brought me over, and introduced me to him.

Rebecca (left), Maya (hidden, with pink cap), and another volunteer interact with students (not Will) at JFA’s Art of Life Exhibit at KU.

We started a conversation, and Will seemed pretty open to hearing why I believed what I did.  I asked him if I could see if there were areas where we could agree.  First we jumped into the topic of biology.  I told Will that I believed that the unborn is a human being from conception forward, and he said, “You know, I don’t believe that it’s a human being from conception on a biological level.”  I then found out that he was a biology major, so I first asked him, “Since you’re a biology major, would you mind if I would just share with you snippets from my understanding of biology, and then you can break those down, and tell me if you agree or disagree?”  He said, “Okay!”

So I took about two minutes to explain the sperm and the egg coming together.  We also walked through the “construction vs. development” concept.  (See our “Extending Your Learning - Biology” page to learn more about the way in which the unborn is not constructed like a car, but instead develops from within, more like a polaroid photo.)  He said, “You know, there’s nothing there I can disagree with at this point.”

Sean (right) and Benjamin (center) talk to their JFA mentor, Paul Kulas (left), about Benjamin’s first conversation at the KU outreach in March.

Then we walked through the idea that, from fertilization, the unborn is not part of another organism, but is a whole organism with its own functional parts.  I asked Will what his thoughts were on that, and he said, “You know, there’s nothing I can disagree with there either.”  So we came to the end of walking through how we know the unborn is biologically human, and he didn’t have anything to refute.

“Okay, so we agree that the unborn is biologically human,” I said.  “What does that mean with regard to abortion?”  After that, I walked through the Equal Rights Argument, and he seemed to be very responsive to that line of reasoning.  (Learn to defend the equal right to life of the unborn through real-life dialogue examples in our Equal Rights Argument Newsletter Collection.)

We had probably talked for about thirty minutes when Will looked at me and at Maya.  “That is one of the most logical arguments I have heard for the pro-life position,” he said.  “I am really going to have to continue processing this and thinking about this.”

When he walked away, Maya turned to me and said, “That was amazing!”

I was really excited because this seemed to be an answer to my prayers for Maya.  That was one of the first outreach conversations she had witnessed, and it walked through the seminar material in a way that would make it make sense for her.  It wasn’t a conversation about one of the more complicated topics that are sometimes raised at our events, such as “whether or not we know we exist” or “whether or not we can know anything at all.”  It was actually one of the more basic conversations, in which the person with whom we spoke was able to follow pretty simple ideas and logic.

- Rebecca Hotovy, Training Specialist

Three students from a Catholic high school joined the JFA team at KU as mission trip participants from out of state.  These young men were participants at the JFA seminar held just off campus and then came out to volunteer for the first full day of outreach at KU.  After they helped with exhibit setup, our team started to create conversations with KU students.  About an hour or two into the outreach, I noticed that these young men from my group were doing a good job of just observing JFA staff members’ conversations, which is what we had instructed them to do for the first portion of the day.

I was taking pictures, standing off to the side, when a KU student came up to two of the young men, Benjamin and Sean.  They were standing next to the new art table by the Art of Life Exhibit at the time, listening to one of Becca Hotovy’s conversations.  (See pictures of the art table created by JFA trainer Grace Fontenot, and other photos from the recent outreach at KU, in the JFA Photo Archive.)  Right after the KU student came up to talk to them, Benjamin started interacting with him.  The college student seemed to have an agenda, and he had a sort of steamrolling personality in the conversation.  I was within earshot, but not close enough to be in the conversation, so I slowly inched my way closer to listen and be available if I was needed.

The KU student shared that he had grown up in a Christian community in a small, remote town.  A 13-year-old girl in the town had been forced into an intimate, incestuous relationship by an older family member.  He said the girl had ended up getting pregnant as a result, and that the family had shamed this young woman for what had happened even though she was the victim.  The KU student ended up basically saying to the high schoolers, “What would you tell this woman who gets pregnant and wants an abortion?”

It was one of the hardest topics that ever gets brought up, and it was the first conversation in which these students had actively participated.  I didn’t know how Benjamin would handle it, but he did a really good job of showing compassion for the rape victim, balancing the relational and intellectual challenges inherent in responding to the question of rape.  (See “What about Rape?” in JFA's Interactive Guide to learn to meet both challenges and respond in a Christ-like way.)  I thought that with just one seminar under his belt, he actually did very well at staying on the relational side, focusing on the horror of rape and showing genuine sympathy.  He didn’t jump into intellectual argument mode, even though he was a very intellectually adept student.  I did end up joining in the conversation at one point to help out somewhat, but he had done a really good job of focusing on the right approach at the right time. 

- Paul Kulas, Director of Operations