Task 1

¹Your first task in helping others to see your point of view is to find out whether they already agree with Premise 1. It is critically important to ask questions until you understand where someone else stands. It’s natural when challenged to feel the need to start defending yourself right away. It’s important to be able to postpone self-defense long enough to figure out where the other person is coming from.

Born Person Analogies

So you can ask, “If for sake of argument it could be shown that unborn children are persons, would you still be in favor of legalized abortion?”² If the pro-choicer says no, then he already agrees with Premise 1, and you can skip straight to Task 2. He’ll probably say yes, though, in which case you’ll need to employ an analogy to show that his social concerns, real though they may be, do not justify killing persons.

This rhetorical strategy is such a common element of the pro- lifer’s persuasive toolkit that it has its own name, Born Person Analogy, sometimes abbreviated BPA. We tried our hand at a few such analogies in the Pro-Life Reasoning module³, and others can be found in Sample Q & A. They simply entail taking whatever social concern the pro-choicer has and creating a hypothetical scenario in which someone is trying to use that exact same reason to justify killing a born person. It will be ridiculous; the reason it will be ridiculous is that these considerations do not justify murder; and your point will have been made.

This sounds simple, and, intellectually, it is. Interpersonally, however, these social concerns are emotional “sticking points” that are often difficult to get past with rational argumentation. And unfortunately it does no good to present a case for fetal personhood if the individual with whom you’re conversing thinks that fetal personhood is beside the point. So be prepared to spend much of your time on Task 1, remember to use BPAs, and be patient.