Content Overview: Successful pro-life apologists pursue four essential tasks. First, they clarify the debate by focusing public attention on one key question: What is the unborn? Second, they establish a foundation for the debate, demonstrating to critics that metaphysical neutrality is impossible. Third, they answer objections persuasively. Fourth, they teach and equip.
Videos:
Session #1: What is the Issue--The Nature of Moral Reasoning (52 Min.)
Session #2: What is the Unborn? (1:08)
Session #3: What Makes Humans Valuable? Part 1: The Substance View of Persons (52 min.)
Session #4: What Makes Humans Valuable? Part 2: The Religion Objection (15 Min.)
Session #5: Who Makes the Rules? Abortion: Law, Metaphysics, and Moral Neutrality (38 Min.)
Session #6: What is my Duty? The Bodily Autonomy Arguments of Thomson, etc. (54 Min.)
Session #7: Catholic Social Justice Teaching and Other Common Objections (46 Min.)
Session #8: Equipping Yourself to Engage at Your Church (46 Min.)
Session #1: What is the Issue--The Nature of Moral Reasoning (52 Min.)
Session #2: What is the Unborn? (1:08)
Session #3: What Makes Humans Valuable? Part 1: The Substance View of Persons (52 min.)
Session #4: What Makes Humans Valuable? Part 2: The Religion Objection (15 Min.)
Session #5: Who Makes the Rules? Abortion: Law, Metaphysics, and Moral Neutrality (38 Min.)
Session #6: What is my Duty? The Bodily Autonomy Arguments of Thomson, etc. (54 Min.)
Session #7: Catholic Social Justice Teaching and Other Common Objections (46 Min.)
Session #8: Equipping Yourself to Engage at Your Church (46 Min.)
Texts:
1. Gilbert Meilaender, Bioethics: A Primmer for Christians (Eerdmans, 2005)
2. Agnetta Sutton, Christian Bioethics: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark, 2008)
3. Scott Rae, Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics (Zondervan, 2009)
1. Gilbert Meilaender, Bioethics: A Primmer for Christians (Eerdmans, 2005)
2. Agnetta Sutton, Christian Bioethics: A Guide for the Perplexed (T&T Clark, 2008)
3. Scott Rae, Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics (Zondervan, 2009)
4. Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Crossway, 2009)
Suggested Reading:
1. Francis J. Beckwith, Dignity Never Been Photographed: Scientific Materialism, Enlightenment Liberalism, and Steven Pinker (Ethics in Medicine, Vol. 26:2, Summer 2010)
2. Francis J. Beckwith,The Human Being, a Person of Substance: A Response to Dean Stretton(You can view the chapter on-line with Google Reader.)
3. Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (Routledge, 2010)
1. Francis J. Beckwith, Dignity Never Been Photographed: Scientific Materialism, Enlightenment Liberalism, and Steven Pinker (Ethics in Medicine, Vol. 26:2, Summer 2010)
2. Francis J. Beckwith,The Human Being, a Person of Substance: A Response to Dean Stretton(You can view the chapter on-line with Google Reader.)
3. Christopher Kaczor, The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (Routledge, 2010)
3 comments:
Awesome!
Session#6 ("What is my duty") will be by far the most important. I'm going to listen to it right now, and it's probably the only one I will listen to. I listened to another one of Scott Klusendorf's videos on Youtube in the past that focused on "what is the unborn" and used the SLED acronym. The problem is that this makes the gross assumption that if one can prove that a fetus is a person, pro-choicers will agree that abortion should be illegal. If this were the case, wouldn't pro-choicers agree that at least later-term abortions should be illegal? Ask this question to your pro-choice opponent: "If I can show that a fetus is a person, will you agree that abortion should be made illegal?" The answer is generally "no".
Excellent material! I'm onto the third one and it has been very informative.
Michael, it is perhaps a "gross" assumption if by gross you mean something like 'encompassing and without regard for detail'. However, this might not necessarily be a poor assumption.
It is fairly standard for pro-choice proponents to advocate their ideology on the basis of protecting a woman's rights, ie. the right to choice. This kind of advocacy is postured as benevolent (well-meaning, kindly, etc.). For example, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada states that it exists to support the "reproductive rights and health" of women (as read on their homepage). Supporting the rights and health of someone else is certainly a good thing. So it seems that embedded within the very notion of pro-choice the valuing of human life is presupposed, in this case that of the pregnant woman.
It is then our burden to demonstrate that the unborn child is fundamentally no different than you or me and persuade pro-choicers to extend their valuing of human life to unborn children as well. Again, one might safely assume that demonstrating no essential difference between us and the unborn would be sufficient for this to happen.
I don't disagree with you that some pro-choicers could take a stance such as you suggest, that upon conviction that the unborn is human they might still continue steadfast with their pro-choice position. To be charitable, we might assume that they haven't really thought about it yet. However, if they have thought about it, are convinced that the unborn is human life, and continue to maintain that abortion should be legal then we have a different kind of problem on our hands. What do you think?
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