I recently wrote an article about Robin Marty, a pro-choice journalist who attended the East Coast Walk for Life and then wrote about her experience. You can read part one here.
My reason for writing these articles is not just to give my thoughts on her experience, but also to emphasize the fact that I think it takes a lot of courage to attend an organization with people who disagree with you on a controversial topic in an attempt to get to know the people on the other side better. If more of us took the time to do that, we'd probably be able to have better conversations more often.
Day 2
She began by attending a conference of speakers. I'm not really familiar with the Duggars, myself, not being a fan of reality television. I have heard about Shane's Bucket List from the couple with a child with anencephaly, and I'm very glad they had Rick Santorum speak. Santorum is one of the best politicians knowledgeable on the abortion issue. You can see a YouTube video of Santorum debating Barbara Boxer on partial-birth abortion that is very much worth watching.
Next Marty attended a conference of "non-traditional" pro-lifers, a conference where speakers talked about having a place in the pro-life movement for people who don't fit the "white, male, Catholic" stereotype (as for me, a Protestant, I guess two out of three isn't bad). I'm all for this idea. I believe that a house divided amongst itself will not stand. While there are pro-life people I disagree with on other issues, if we want to really see abortion come to an end we need to be united in our cause to end abortion.
That being said, we do need to make sure it goes both ways. I've clashed with pro-life anti-theists on Facebook who were offended by some of my opinions. I wholeheartedly agree with being inclusive, but all of us need to be inclusive. Religious pro-life people shouldn't have to act like atheists to be included by the non-religious.
After that, the march itself began. It's refreshing to see a pro-choice person talk about the actual numbers who participated, instead of the low estimates usually espoused by pro-choice media outlets (there's an inside joke about hundreds of thousands of pro-life ninjas who appear and disappear without being noticed). Marty was able to see first-hand that there really are a huge number of pro-life people who attend these marches, and most of them young people.
Marty did mention passing huge posters of graphic images of abortion, so I'll take a moment to talk about them. I'm not opposed to using graphic images of abortion. I think they can be very helpful to turn an abortion conversation about an esoteric opinion into cold hard reality. It's much more difficult to justify abortion when you have to look at it. I've personally witnessed pro-choice people become pro-life when I showed them the images. But I think abortion images should be used respectfully. I'm not convinced a pro-life march is the best place for it, especially since there are young children who usually attend. I think college campuses are a better place for them, where a free exchange of ideas is reasonably expected.
After passing the abortion photos, the crowd were stopped by a radical, fringe left-wing group called Stop Patriarchy (who are apparently seriously Communistic). The crowd was halted for a while as the police led them away. I guess they succeeded in throwing a small monkey wrench into the march, but I can't see that they really accomplished anything besides being a small nuisance for a little while.
Marty's final event was to attend a sit-in by several pro-life advocates at Representative Renee Ellmers' office over pulling the 20-week abortion ban. However, Ellmers had skipped town, having gotten wind of this protest.
Well, Marty didn't convert at the end, and she doesn't appear open-minded enough to consider that the pro-life position may, in fact, be true. However, it was beneficial to her because it at least showed that behind all the caricatures of pro-life people, there are real people there with real stories. At the very least, the experience may make one pro-choice person more sympathetic to those she opposes.
It's a nice story, but the chasm between the pro-life and pro-abortion sides is simply to wide to cross. Pro-lifers keep thinking that if they can just form a good-enough argument about the humanity of the unborn, then that will win the cause. But when people *want* to misunderstand, no argument can make them understand. The pro-abortion side regards women's absolute equality as sacrosanct, and they are convinced that abortion is necessary to promote this. On the other hand, we in the pro-life movement tend to see the nuclear family as beautiful. And no SLED argument is going to address that. We are up to our eyeballs in technology that demonstrates the humanity of the unborn -- we simply can't do any better on this front. What we need to ask is *why* people are pro-abortion in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI believe you're right, the chasm is unbridgeable. But we must remember that many people who are "pro-choice" never really thought seriously about their position. Many think abortion is legal only in the first trimester. Many don't even know life begins at conception. Many have no idea of how violent an act abortion is. Pro lifers are continually helping people to see these things, and often, when "pro choice" people learn the facts, they realize how evil abortion is, and they change their minds.
DeleteSo, while the hard core ideologues of the pro-abortion movement are unchangeable - they know well abortion is violent, deadly and bad for women, but they believe it's necessary for the "revolution" - many who are not ideologues, and who are concerned only about matters like women's health and social advancement, are capable of changing their minds, and many have, as I'm sure you know.
"Pro-lifers keep thinking that if they can just form a good-enough argument . . ."
ReplyDeleteRight. Everyone on both sides probably understands, if they really think about it, that science and logic cannot prove the correctness of any moral principle; but almost all who talk to the other side at all continue to conduct their conversations as though a proof were possible. I have thought about this as best I could in a blog post "Moral Intuition, Logic and the Abortion Debate" (Can be Googled.)
@Anonymous
ReplyDeleteWell you basically said it: "haven't given it much thought". If we're able to change their mind so easily, it's probably going to be just as easy for a pro-abortion argument to change their mind. What are they going to do when a pro-abortion person asks, "What about women who commit suicide if they are compelled to go through a pregnancy and deliver birth".
On the other hand, if you've changed someone's heart instead of their mind-- then that's a different matter.
@Acyutananda I'll check out your article. Though I do think a moral principle can be proved. At the very least, it's easy to tell when people are being morally inconsistent.
Thanks. The article includes a little story about a pro-lifer who feels trapped in terms of logical consistency, but, I argue, is not necessarily inconsistent morally.
DeleteThanks for this post and Part I, both of which I just became aware of.
ReplyDelete"I personally think she was very brave. . . . My reason for writing these articles is not just to give my thoughts on her experience, but also to emphasize the fact that I think it takes a lot of courage . . ."
Right.
"Marty came to realize that pro-life people do care . . . for children after they are born. . . . Marty was able to see first-hand that there really are a huge number of pro-life people who attend these marches, and most of them young people. . . . Well, Marty didn't convert at the end, and she doesn't appear open-minded enough to consider that the pro-life position may, in fact, be true. However, it was beneficial to her because it at least showed that behind all the caricatures of pro-life people, there are real people there with real stories."
I think that though she unfortunately does not appear open-minded on the crucial moral issues, Marty does deserve a LOT of credit for open-mindedness in terms of an ability to let go of stereotypes. Besides her breakthroughs on "caring," "numbers," "youth" and "real people" that you have mentioned, she also wrote:
". . . the march was a completely different event – full of joy and energy and youthful exuberance."
"the openness and generosity of everyone I met"
"the march has reminded me once more that those who oppose abortion have their own set of truths . . ."
"Jill Stanek and John Jakubczyk . . . told her that they wanted to get into the mainstream, rather than creating a counterculture . . ."
I also wrote a blog post at the time, "A Stopgap Response to Robin Marty's Coverage of the March for Life" (Can be Googled.) I took quite a bit of issue with Marty's take on the "mainstream" (and saying the pro-life movement is out of it) and a "bubble," and her representation of Jill Stanek's, John Jakubczyk's and Andy Moore's views on those concepts. In fact, that was almost the sole focus of my post.
"Pro-Choice journalist Robin Marty was invited to the Walk for Life in Washington, D.C. by Jill Stanek to see what it is pro-life people do at these events. She wasn't infiltrating; she wasn't pretending to be pro-life to deceive people and 'collect dirt' on pro-life people."
(smile) This inevitably reminded me of an amusing and insightful piece that Jill Stanek wrote about a pro-choice event in Texas that she attended (without pretending, but attended anonymously -- is that infiltrating?) just two days after the March for Life. Sample: "I also noted only two children in attendance – but lots and lots of pet dogs – pretty much the opposite of what you'd see at a pro-life event." (Google for "My big take-away from attending a pro-choice rally")
"Thankfully she only used the phrase twice (I was afraid she'd continue to use it throughout the article . . ."
(smile again) Exactly the same thing went on in my mind. I felt sure she had decided on that as her leitmotif.
"As Christians who recognize we are made in the image of a creative God, we should be producing the best products out there. Not specifically Christian products, but products that are a natural outpouring of our faith."
I'm not a Christian, but completely agree with you that "If you've got a message, take it to Western Union." Or rather, messages in art can be extremely effective, but they have to somehow be carried by the currents of the artist's quest for beauty.