Melody's Story

Melody was not supposed to live very long according to what most doctors predicted. However, she is now 9 1/2 years old and thriving!

My sister was born with Trisomy 18.

Trisomy 18 is a genetic condition in which an individual has a third copy of chromosome 18. The statistics my parents were given when Melody was born were grim. They were told that babies with Trisomy 18 only make it out of the womb alive 10% of the time, and If the babies survive delivery, 50% don’t survive the first week. Of those, only 5-10% make it to a year.

Melody not only made it to a year, she has lived for close to a decade! She is a healthy and happy little girl. Tragically, when babies in the womb have a positive screening test for Trisomy 18, they are labeled “incompatible with life”, and the pressure to abort is overwhelming.

Melody is certainly not “incompatible with life.” She is equally human like the rest of us and full of vitality.

Go to melodysstory.com to read more about her incredible story. (I drew liberally from Melody’s website which is written by my mom, Jennifer Thenhaus.)

Jack Changes His Mind...Three Times

Part 1: A Good Conversation Is a Mirror

One of my favorite conversations from my JFA work is my conversation with “Jack” from 2013. Recently I’ve been sharing it with audiences as an example of the kind of complete change of mind that can happen very quickly. I don’t mean to imply that most JFA conversations result in a conversion this dramatic, but the story does help us catch a glimpse of what is possible with any conversation. Let’s trust that God is working behind the scenes of every conversation, even if we don’t see results like this. -Steve Wagner, July 2021 Impact Report

It was a special treat. In many conversations, the person with whom I’m speaking doesn’t show a clear change of mind. I simply must trust God to work behind the scenes. In one conversation at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) in March 2013, though, I had the privilege of watching a young man I’ll call “Jack” change his mind...three times.

“Jack” (right) and Steve ponder pictures of human development and work to discover what explains our equal rights. (Photo by John Michener)

Jack had talked to someone at our outreach the previous day, so when I asked him where he drew the line on human rights, he was ready with an answer. “At eighteen weeks,” he said. Through a few minutes of clarifying questions from me, he stated that he believed the unborn was a human being biologically, but that the basic right to life began when brain processing was such that the unborn could respond to sound.

He had another reason to draw the line at about eighteen weeks, though: viability. Again, I asked a few questions to clarify what he meant, and he confirmed that he meant that when the unborn could survive outside the womb, even if she required technology, she would have the basic right to life.

“Doesn’t progress in technology move the point of viability earlier and earlier?” I asked.

“That’s a really good point,” Jack pondered. He and I agreed human rights could not be determined by a criterion that could be moved from year to year by technological advances. The first change of mind.

I then raised a problem for Jack to solve. “If all of us walking around the campus deserve equal treatment, we must have something the same about us that demands that we be treated equally. But what is the same about us?”

He had raised the possibility that “brain processing” was the thing that made the unborn valuable at about eighteen weeks. I asked if he meant brain processing itself. When he said, “Yes,” I pointed out that brain processing is something that comes in degrees – we can have more or less of it. Since it’s not something we all have equally, it cannot ground equal rights. He saw the problem.

I gave him another option, though. If he framed his explanation for equal rights as “that we have brain processing at all” then it would be an all-or-nothing property that could potentially ground equal human rights. It was true that all of the adults whose rights we were discussing in the vicinity of the outreach at UTSA did have the property of “having brain processing at all,” and they had that property equally. If Jack was right that this adjusted criterion was the reason for basic rights, then that would account for the equal rights of adults, and it would account for the fact that infants also share those equal rights. In fact, the basic right to life would then extend into the womb to approximately the point he had picked, at eighteen weeks.

I pointed out, though, that this would present an additional problem: then many animals, such as dogs, would also have equal rights to the rest of us, because they also have the property of “having brain processing at all.” Jack made a predictable move at this point and added two additional criteria. “You don’t just have to have ‘brain processing at all’ to have equal rights. You also have to be viable and human.”

I asked him if he could give me an independent reason to believe that value should be based on these three things in combination. I was looking for an independent reason other than “It saves my view that the unborn should only be protected after eighteen weeks, and that whatever rights animals deserve, they shouldn’t be equal to humans.”

He saw the point of my question, and he quickly saw what philosophers would call the ad hoc nature of his argument. His only reason for adjusting his argument was to save it from the implications I drew from it.

I could see the wheels turning. My explanation for equal rights was also on the table – human nature. But the implications of that view were also clear: if human nature is the thing that we all share equally that demands that we be treated equally, then the unborn should be treated equally, too, because the unborn has that same human nature.

“Okay, you’ve convinced me,” he said. “I agree that abortion should only be legal if the mother’s life is in danger.” A second change of mind.

Unlike many students I talk to, who feel they have to put on confident airs or defend their arguments at all costs, Jack clearly wanted something more than to impress me. He wanted to understand truth. He got the truth, and I ended up impressed with him anyway – especially with his humble spirit.

I hadn’t taken a posture of trying to change Jack’s mind. Our conversation functioned more like a mirror, reflecting back to Jack what I heard him telling me. He responded like the happy young chap about to make a business proposal who barely remembers to check the mirror and finds a spot of mustard left unceremoniously on his chin by his lunchtime liverwurst. No one wants to be oblivious to his real state of affairs. There were two factors, though, that especially caused my mirror to be helpful to Jack:

• Without the skills of clear thinking, the mirror would have failed to reflect certain portions of the image properly. Because I knew the questions to ask, the exact image emerged for Jack. Mastering clear thinking skills takes work, but you can learn to create a helpful reflection for someone like Jack. To take practical steps to begin developing these skills, see www.jfaweb.org/clear-thinking.

• The image would have become blurry or distorted like that of a carnival mirror had I not had an attitude of humility and goodwill. If I had needed to show Jack my intellectual prowess, he might have felt the need to take me down a peg or two. If I had belittled his views or mocked them, it would have made it harder for him to take the truth seriously. He might have felt the need to defend turf, and he would have been distracted from the truth altogether.

Throughout our conversation, I brought an attitude of partnering to find truth together. I considered his arguments as if they might be true. Because he was worth my time, his arguments were worth my best efforts to evaluate them with him. He looked in the mirror that our conversation was presenting to him, saw his views for what they were, and decided to make a change right then.

I sensed that our work was not finished, though, because Jack and I had not yet confronted the two thorniest aspects of the topic, especially when combined as an argument for legal abortion: bodily rights and rape. Instead of assuming the conversation had been sufficient as a mirror, I decided to turn it into a window. That’s when Jack had his third moment of truth. I’ll explain in Part 2 below.

- Steve Wagner, for the JFA Team

Note: Steve’s conversation with “Jack” took place in March 2013. This report was originally published later that year. Special thanks to John Michener of Oklahomans United for Life for his editing on this piece in 2013. This post has been updated in minor ways and can be shared via www.jfaweb.org/mirror-and-window.

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Part 2: A Good Conversation Is a Window

In this report, you’ll see the conclusion of my conversation with Jack from 2013, and you’ll see him change his mind a third time. You’ll see how I gave him a window for viewing the most compelling arguments for abortion, along with compelling responses to them. I hope reading this conversation will not only inspire you to look deeper into the ideas, but that it will also help you see that you can create conversations which compel abortion-choice advocates to change their minds. - Steve Wagner, August 2021 Impact Report

In Part I above, I described how “Jack” in San Antonio abandoned his belief that the unborn only become valuable at viability and then later said I had convinced him that abortion should not be legal except in the case of a threat to the mother’s life.

“Jack” (above, right) initially clarified that he believed abortion should generally be legal. 90 minutes later he said, “Heck” and wrote on the Free Speech Board (below). He told me that he now thought abortion should not be legal even in the case of rape.

These two changes of mind were encouraging, but I sensed that our work was not finished. We hadn’t yet discussed arguments claiming that even if the unborn is a human being, the woman’s right to her body justifies abortion. I knew that if we didn’t address these bodily rights arguments, especially compelling in the case of rape, Jack might be shaken when he encountered them.

In the first part of the conversation, Jack had been making the claims, and I had been functioning as a mirror to help him assess his own views about abortion. Now I set out to function more like a window, showing Jack other arguments out there that he hadn’t considered yet.

I began by explaining what former JFA intern Trent Horn called the “Sovereign Zone” view: A woman can do anything she wants with anything in her body, and because the unborn is inside her body, the woman can kill the unborn. I pointed out that if a woman has the right to do anything with anything that is inside her body, then many things would be justified legally, including intentionally deforming the unborn by taking thalidomide and intentionally torturing the unborn late in the pregnancy through dismemberment abortion. (See “Autumn in the Sovereign Zone” at www.jfaweb.org/body for more on this approach.)

Seeing the implications of the Sovereign Zone view clearly through this window, Jack and I agreed it had to be abandoned. I knew that there was a stronger version of the bodily rights argument that was not so easily dismantled, though, and I went on to tell Jack about it.

Sure, it’s obvious that a woman can’t do anything to anything that is inside her body. But can she be forced to allow the unborn to do something to her body – to use her body to sustain its life? Or does she have a right to refuse? As Trent Horn has pointed out, unlike the Sovereign Zone argument, which is based on a very controversial premise, this “Right to Refuse” argument is based on a very uncontroversial premise: Generally speaking, you can’t be forced to do something with your body you don’t want to do.

It’s not only pro-choice advocates who find this argument plausible. I find it plausible. If you find yourself hooked up to someone who needs your kidney to live, you can’t be forced to stay hooked up. How then can a government force a woman to stay hooked up to her unborn child? And worse, what if the woman didn’t consent to intimacy? Can a woman who is pregnant from rape be forced to continue to use her body to sustain the unborn’s life? As Jack and I pondered these questions together, I noted how compelling this line of reasoning is. Even if it holds only in the case of rape and therefore applies to no more than 1.5% of abortions in America, it’s troubling.

It’s important to note that throughout this conversation I emphasized genuine sympathy for those who have been raped. This is imperative in any conversation about rape and abortion, but especially when that conversation involves complicated intellectual arguments. We should never get so caught up in our ideas that we forget the people affected by them. This is not just true with the topic of rape, but also with any appeal to bodily rights. (Please see “Meeting the Relational Challenge” at www.jfaweb.org/body for more on this.)

I then shared two parables with Jack that indicate there’s something amiss with the Right to Refuse argument, even in the case of rape. I’ll share just a snapshot of one of them here, and you can see a full treatment of the approach I used with Jack in a paper we published online in April 2013: “De Facto Guardian and Abortion.” (You can find this paper, along with newer resources with alternative approaches at www.jfaweb.org/body.)

In the movie Up, Carl (inset image, white hair) sets his house free from the ground, flies thousands of feet in the air, and then hears a knock at the door. The young explorer Russell has stowed away on the porch and is about to fall off. Is Carl obligated to take him in? Should the law expect him to give Russell food and shelter? What if he has to use his body to pour water or cut bread for Russell? Does this change the obligation?

Jack agreed that Carl does have an obligation to use his body to support Russell’s life. He also agreed this should be a legal obligation. One explanation of this obligation is that Carl just happens to be, for whatever reason, the only person in the vicinity who can care for Russell. We called Carl a de facto guardian because it seems he has the same obligations as that of a parent or guardian, though temporarily.

The woman pregnant from rape is similarly situated to Carl. She didn’t ask to be in the situation where she would be the only person in the vicinity who could care for a child. But she is. If the de facto guardian principle holds, then, she has an obligation (and, as we argue, what should be a legal obligation) to give the child in her womb the food and shelter he needs. She has the obligation to care for the child even if she didn’t consent to that obligation, and even if she doesn’t feel like a parent. We, in turn, should surround her with support.

After writing this comment towards the end of our conversation, Jack told me that he now thought abortion should not be legal even in the case of rape.

After discussing this strongest version of the Right to Refuse argument and how it fared in light of our intuitions about parables like the Up story, Jack said, “Heck” and wrote on the Free Speech Board, “Life will force you into situations you don’t necessarily want but have to deal with nonetheless.” He then verbalized to me that abortion should not be legal, even early in the pregnancy and even in the case of rape.

I saw this third change as more significant than Jack’s previous changes of mind. Now I was satisfied that I had created a window so he could see clearly the very best arguments for legal abortion before rejecting them. Evidently I did a good job of presenting those arguments, because at one point Jack said I was making him start to waver and think abortion might be justified. As you can imagine, I created this window for Jack with some fear and trembling. Why risk someone wavering back toward the pro-choice position? Even worse, why risk someone becoming a more confident pro-choice advocate with better arguments?

There are two reasons my fears didn’t keep me from creating a window for Jack. First, truth is not fragile. It will shine through if we ask the right questions and apply our minds to the study of sound reasoning. Second, Jack is a human being who is intrinsically valuable. He’s not an opportunity to make a convert. He deserves my best efforts to create conversation that is both a mirror and a window.

- Steve Wagner, for the JFA Team

Note: Steve’s conversation with “Jack” took place in March 2013. This report was originally published later that year. Special thanks to John Michener of Oklahomans United for Life for his editing on this piece in 2013. This post has been updated in minor ways and can be shared via www.jfaweb.org/mirror-and-window.

Postscript

JFA’s “Stop and Think” Exhibit is reflected in the windows of a building at Colorado State University in 2016. In a way, JFA’s Exhibits also function as both a mirror and a window - reflecting back to people the reality of what their views entail and giving people insight into topics and ideas they may never have thought about. You can see all of JFA’s Exhibits at our Exhibits page.

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)

Share this post to start a conversation!

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

A Living Room Conversation

By Grace Fontenot, JFA Training Specialist

PART 1:  MORALITY AND LEGALITY

“Will you talk to me about abortion?  Please just tell me about it!”  This was not what I expected to hear upon returning to my host home on a recent JFA trip.  My hosts were out on a date, and they had informed me that they would have their new babysitter staying with their kids that evening, and that she’d let me into the house.  The kids were already in bed when I knocked on the door, and their babysitter, “Heidi,” answered.  She turned out to be a sweet, friendly young woman, and a student at a local university.

Heidi and I hit it off immediately.  We began chatting, and pretty soon she asked me why I was visiting the area, so I explained to her the work that I do with Justice For All.  I told her that through speaking and mentoring, I help train pro-life advocates to defend their beliefs in a way that balances truth and love in every conversation.  She then enthusiastically said, “Will you talk to me? Will you give me one of your talks?”  I was happily surprised, and we sat down in the cozy living room where I then asked her if she’d share her thoughts on abortion.  Our conversation went something like this:

Heidi:  I believe that little life has a soul, and I don’t think it’s my place to “play God” by ending that life through abortion.  But I don’t think that I can allow my religious beliefs to limit the choices of others who don’t share them when it comes to making public policies.  So I can’t say that I think abortion should be made illegal.

Grace:  I understand your concern for the freedom of others, and not wanting to force people to live by religious standards they don’t hold.  Can I ask you a question, though?  I’ve talked to a lot of people about abortion, and I’ve noticed that people have different reasons for why they hold their views.  Why are you pro-life?

Grace in conversation in front of the Art of Life exhibit during JFA’s outreach at University of Kansas (KU) in March 2018.

Heidi:  I think because I’ve always wanted to be a mom.  My mom has always said I was born to be a mother.  I was raised pro-life, but like I said, I don’t think I can tell others that they can’t get an abortion.

Grace:  Do you believe that there are some things mentioned in the Bible, which we believe as
Christians, that also should be laws?  For example, one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not kill.”  Do you think we should make murder legal because the law against it may be influenced by a Christian belief?

Heidi:  No, of course not!  You’re right, that law makes sense for everyone even though it’s also a Christian belief.

Grace:  This may sound like a weird question to ask, but what is the definition of murder?

Heidi:  It’s when you kill an innocent person… and if abortion kills a human being, then it must be murder!

Notice how I first built common ground with Heidi.  I tried to identify with her discomfort about forcing others, by law, to comply with a belief system they don’t currently hold.  Because of this, Heidi felt heard and understood.  After I built common ground, though, I raised an example of a law that coincides with our religious beliefs, but which can clearly be legally applied to all citizens regardless of religion.  Heidi quickly recognized that outlawing abortion falls into this category.  If abortion kills an innocent human being, it is not only morally wrong, but must be legally outlawed for everyone.

PART 2:  THE UNBORN - A LIVING, HUMAN ORGANISM

Heidi began to realize that if abortion kills an innocent human being, it must be restricted legally.  This naturally took us into the next part of our conversation, in which we discussed the humanity of the unborn, biologically.  It was such a fun conversation because we were both becoming increasingly excited!  I was curious about her views on the biology of the unborn, so I decided to clarify whether or not we held the same beliefs on that subject.  My hope in asking these questions was to make her more confident in her position against abortion.

Grace:  I remember you mentioning earlier the word “life,” and I’m curious, what does the word “life” mean for you?  You may have noticed I ask for definitions pretty often, and that’s because, over time, I’ve realized that people can have different intended definitions for the same words.

Heidi:  Oh, okay.  Well, actually, I was just studying this!  [Heidi excitedly took out her course notes to reference them.]  When I say “life,” I think I mean development.  I’m in a developmental motor skills class, and I was just reading about how, from the moment that fertilization is completed, development is happening!

Grace:  So if the unborn is developing from the point of fertilization, would you agree that it must be alive?

Heidi:  Yes.

Grace:  Would you further agree with me that, because living things reproduce after their own kind, the unborn must also be human?

Heidi:  Yes.

Grace:  And do you agree that the unborn is a whole organism?

Heidi:  I... think so…

She said this slowly.  I could tell she wasn’t sure what I meant, so I asked a follow-up question to clarify terms and to make sure that Heidi and I were on the same page.

Grace:  What do you mean when you use the word “organism”?

Heidi:  Hmmm.  I don’t know exactly.  What is the definition of the word “organism”?

Grace:  I can’t give you the exact definition off of the top of my head, but an organism is an individual life form.  For example, the leaf of the plant on the table next to you is a part of the whole organism, which is the plant.  In the same way, your thumb is a part of your body; but you, Heidi, are the whole organism.  So in the same way, sperm and egg are functional parts of a man and a woman.  However, when they combine, they cease being parts of another person’s body, and a new whole organism comes into existence, on its own self-directed path of development.  Does that make sense?  (Note: See our Extending Your Learning page to read Maureen Condic's excellent article on this topic, “Life: Defining the Beginning by the End.”)

Heidi:  Yes! So the unborn is the same kind of thing that we are;  it’s just at a different stage of development!

We were then interrupted by one of the kids coming downstairs complaining of a sore throat.  After administering medicine and sending him back up to bed, Heidi and I continued our conversation. 

Notice that instead of simply telling Heidi that she had a misunderstanding about the biology of the unborn, I asked her questions so that I could think through it alongside her.  In Justice For All’s Abortion: from Debate to Dialogue seminar, I help to train participants to dialogue about the biological humanity of the unborn.  One way that we do this is through a tool developed by Steve Wagner.  This tool can be said in ten seconds (below), or broken down more slowly in a conversation, as exemplified in my dialogue with Heidi.

Steve calls this the 10-Second Pro-life Apologist.  Here’s how it goes:

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

• And if it has human parents, isn’t it human?

• And living humans, or human beings like you and me, are valuable, aren’t they?

I want to encourage you to have your own conversations about abortion, and remember that it doesn’t take years of study and experience to ask thought-provoking questions, to listen, and to point out areas of agreement.  It is helpful, however, to have a little bit of knowledge of the biological development of the unborn, so that you can refer to it as I did in my conversation with Heidi.  To help you further defend the biological humanity of the unborn, I’ve listed bullet points from the interactive guide participants use in our seminar.

EVIDENCE THAT THE UNBORN IS A LIVING, HUMAN ORGANISM:

1.  The unborn is living.

• Growth through cellular reproduction

• Reacting to stimuli

• Metabolizing food for energy

2.  The unborn is human.

• Has human parents (living things reproduce after their own kind)

• Has a DNA fingerprint unique to the human species

3.  The unborn is a whole organism.

• Integrating its body parts for the good of the whole

• Actively developing itself through the stages of human development

• If adults are organisms, and all that was added to them from fertilization was a proper environment and adequate nutrition, then the unborn at fertilization must have been an organism as well.

PART 3:  HUMAN EQUALITY AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS

When I last wrote, I paused the story when one of the kids whom Heidi was babysitting complained of a sore throat.  After helping him and sending him back to bed, Heidi and I continued our conversation:

Heidi:  One of my main concerns is that I live in a city that is very liberal, and being pro-life is not popular.  I don’t want to be considered…

Grace:  Anti-woman?

Heidi:  Yeah! 

Her eyes widened.  It seemed to be a comfort that I understood why she felt torn.  I then asked her if she would like for me to explain to her the reasons I can call myself a feminist and a pro-life advocate.  “I would love it if you would,” she replied with a big smile stretching across her face. 

I then shared with Heidi the Equal Rights Argument*, a series of questions that can help someone to understand that equal rights can only be based on something that we all share equally, and the thing we share equally that best explains our equal rights is our common humanity.

Grace:  Let’s take a step away from the topic of abortion for a moment.  Do you agree that all born human beings deserve equal treatment?  If you agree that we deserve to be treated equally, then there must be something equal or the same about us, right?  So what is the same about us that demands our equal treatment?

Heidi:  It’s that we’re human!  I think I know where you’re going with this!

Grace discusses equal rights with a pro-choice student next to the art table at JFA’s outreach to the University of Kansas in March 2018.

Grace:  Yes, you’re right!  See, the reason that racism and sexism are wrong is because we all deserve to be treated equally based on our common humanity; so, if the unborn are also human like we are, they have to be included in the group of beings that have equal rights. 

Now let’s turn to feminism.  If I claim that I deserve equal rights as a woman because I am equally human to men, but then I turn around and say that I also deserve the right to end the life of someone else who is equally human to me through abortion, then I would be betraying the foundation of my feminist beliefs.  So it actually makes more sense to be a pro-life feminist than it does to be a pro-choice one!

Heidi:  That’s so helpful!  Feminism is such a big deal right now, and I’m a woman!  I don’t want to be accused of being anti-woman, but I also don’t want to have to sacrifice my pro-life beliefs.  Thank you so much for discussing this with me.

Before heading upstairs to my room for the evening, I decided to ask Heidi if the conversation had impacted her views on abortion in any way.   In the same fashion as she had handled the entire conversation, Heidi took time to think carefully before replying.  She paused and then shared an incredibly encouraging answer:

Heidi:  I grew up in a very conservative town.  I remember ignoring any conversation about politics because my dad and my friends’ dads would talk about politics constantly.  But now, I feel as though I need to be more informed about politics so that I can start voting and form my own opinions on different political subjects.  I feel so excited because, since talking to you, I feel like I know the reasons why I believe what I believe about abortion.  I feel confident now that I can share them, and I can participate in conversations about the topic because the reasons backing up my position are sound.

Heidi and I had a fantastic conversation, covering almost every topic in JFA’s Abortion: From Debate to Dialogue seminars.  I’m so thankful that we were able to talk that evening because now Heidi feels equipped to share her views with those within her sphere of influence.  She told me at the end of our conversation that she leads a Bible study on her campus for freshman girls, and that she hopes to have a conversation with them about unplanned pregnancy and abortion in the future. 

You never know how far one conversation can go, and you never know how many people it can impact. This is a perfect example of starting conversations about abortion in everyday life. For multiple conversation starter ideas, see the JFA blog. Here’s one example: You could start a conversation with a friend by sharing JFA’s social media post titled, “Can She Embrace Both?”  The idea of starting a conversation may seem intimidating, but if we are truly serious about protecting mothers, fathers, and babies from abortion, then a little bit of awkwardness is a small sacrifice to pay.

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*EQUAL RIGHTS ARGUMENT

• Do you agree that we all deserve equal treatment, at least regarding the basic right to life?

• If we deserve to be treated equally, doesn’t that mean there has to be something the same about us?

• What is the same about us?

Click here for more examples of the Equal Rights Argument in action.