We Asked, You Answered: Feedback from Former Pro-Choicers
We asked our followers on social media: “For those of you who used to be pro-choice, what advice do you have on how to talk to pro-choice people about abortion? What did you find persuasive or off-putting when you were still pro-choice?” Here are a few of the top responses (lightly edited for clarity).
Nelson H.: “Do not link it to cultural war rhetoric. Do not wedge it with other social issues. Use ethics, science and reason… not religion. Distinguish between science-based human and philosophical-based person.”
Tris: “Just answer the questions. Some pro-choicers truly have questions, and the best you can do is answer with grace and understanding. This is what changed my mind. When I asked, the pro-choice people yelled at me and said shut up. The pro-life side answered me and provided sources.”
Heidi P.: “For me it was a MADD talk in high school about drunk driving that started my change. I couldn’t reconcile how someone could be charged with manslaughter for killing a pregnant woman, but abortion was fully legal because the baby died in both cases.”
Miranda F.: “I would say avoid all religious reasoning (not as big of a struggle with this group). But so many pro-lifers are religious and they start spouting religious stuff and that just turns people off. And there are plenty of scientific reasons to be pro-life.”
Lux: “Experiencing pregnancy enlightened me to the ‘clump of cells’ lie and it was all downhill from there. I don’t know how to recreate that necessarily, but one of my most successful conversations with another mom on the subject was simply asking questions, not threateningly, with curiosity, until she’d backed herself into a corner and ended the conversation.”
Emika A.: “I considered myself to be pro-choice, but I always said that I, personally, would never have an abortion. Once I started exploring that thought a bit more, I became pro-life in a matter of months.”
Cordwania K.: “Most off-putting is claiming fetal development is irrelevant. Most effective is showing how advanced it is. Almost all of us ‘normies’ think there’s a huge moral difference between aborting a microscopic ball of identical cells versus a 24-week hearing, kicking, hiccupping baby.”
Angel S.: “Education on fetal development was probably the biggest factor for me.”
Victor S.: “Always be up for civil discussion, no matter how much you dislike the pro-choice arguments being made. Many pro-choice people have been falsely led to believe that the only people who are pro-life are hateful Christians who are uneducated, sexist, and above all, irrationally belligerent. If you can buck this latter belief then you can start to change their minds about other views they may hold about pro-life people and about being pro-life in general.”
[Photo credit: Tachina Lee on Unsplash]
