This coming Friday, thousands of Americans will stream to the National Mall to voice their support for the sanctity of all human life—and to mark the deadliest mistake in Supreme Court history: Roe v. Wade.
Now, you may not be able to attend the March for Life in Washington, D. C. or in any of the other cities that host one. But you can have those important conversations about life and abortion with friends, colleagues, and relatives.
In fact, you must. Don’t stay silent. Don’t succumb to cocktail party pressure. Don’t think that it’s only the job of professional speakers and writers and activists to speak out on the killing of innocent, preborn human beings. A case can be made for life that is thoughtful, reasonable, and articulate. To make that case, we have to be prepared.
This week on the BreakPoint podcast, I’m joined by Scott Klusendorf, founder of the Life Training Institute, and one of the truly great pro-life apologists. He’s a master at training others to make the case for life. On the podcast, Scott and I walk through the main objections people have about the pro-life position. We talk about the arguments behind each objection, and then describe not only how to refute them but how to make the case for life.
As Scott describes, we have to know how to make our fundamental case, first that abortion is wrong. Our case is clear: First, it is wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Second, abortion kills innocent human beings. Therefore, abortion is wrong.
Now, notice we’re not telling people how we feel. We’re not quoting a Bible verse or a religious authority. We’ve simply made an objective case, and from there we should be prepared to defend that argument.
For example, we can say with confidence that the science of embryology shows that from the earliest stages of development, you were a distinct living and whole human being—not part of another human being, but a whole distinct member of the human family. So, there’s no essential difference between you the embryo and you the adult that would justify killing you. Sure, your size, level of development and dependency, your environment were different when you were in utero, but these aren’t differences that justify killing you then as opposed to now.
That’s our case. And we’ll hear objections: “Well, you believe what you believe because you’re religious. You can’t impose your religious beliefs on me or on women.”
That’s called changing the subject. As Scott says, don’t let them do it. Tell your friend, politely, “Hold on, I just laid out a case as to why abortion is wrong. I gave reasons for my views. I noticed you didn’t refute them, you simply accused me of being religious.”
Then refer back to the main case: Killing an innocent human being is wrong. Abortion kills an innocent human being, therefore it’s wrong.
Another objection, which we hear a lot: “Women have a right to choose. Why are you against a woman’s right to choose?”
Well, ask the person: The right to choose what? Of course, women absolutely should have the choice about their careers, their health care, marriage. But some choices are wrong—like the choice to intentionally kill an innocent human being. And notice there, we’re taking the person back to the fundamental pro-life case.
Here’s one more objection: This is just a clump of cells, not a human being.
Even though embryology and science have proven this wrong, we still hear it. So you might tackle it this way: A clump of cells doesn’t grow into an adult human being. For example, take the cells on the back of your hand. They are part of you, but they, along with say, a sperm cell and an egg, are different from an embryo, which is a whole living organism, and as we’ve made clear, a whole human being, that will mature into adulthood.
And then we remind them of the case: It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
Well, we tackle several more pro-choice objections to life on the BreakPoint podcast this week. Please, come to BreakPoint.org, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and tune in.
You can prepare yourself to make the case for life. And we want to help you do it.
BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
John Stonestreet, the host of The Point, a daily national radio program, provides thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
Publication date: January 16, 2019
Photo courtesy: Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash