Equipped for Life Podcast

Josh, Tim, and Rachel talk about how to respond to the Freakonomics argument that abortion has resulted in a drop in crime rates, as well as a new technique Josh has been using when talking to utilitarians.

The episode begins with a discussion of various theories at to Rey's parentage in the Star Wars universe, in anticipation of "The Last Jedi" coming out. This discussion includes spoilers of "The Force Awakens" and some of what has been learned through "The Last Jedi" trailers, so skip the discussion if you're avoiding all potential spoilers. Some of this discussion has been moved to a deleted scene below, but if you don't want to hear any of this discussion, skip to 09:59.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel respond to a bunch of listener mail questions related to the burning IVF lab thought experiment, particularly the concern that it's too easy for pro-choice people to get traction with strawmen tweets when pro-life people have to answer with longer, more thoughtful responses that fewer people will read.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel talk about their recent outreach at Davidson College, which was a particularly difficult outreach for Tim and Rachel. They discuss what made it difficult as well as share some practical tips for handling discouragement at an outreach.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel interview Casey Mattox on how students should deal with free speech violations, and responding to common arguments from typically leftists defending free speech violations.

Casey Mattox joined Alliance Defending Freedom in 2009 litigating cases to protect the First Amendment rights of students and faculty at public colleges and universities across the nation. Since December 2016 he has served as Director of ADF's Center for Academic Freedom, where he leads a team of attorneys that is one of the most active groups of litigators defending First Amendment rights on public university campuses.

Casey has testified three times before House committees on a variety of First Amendment and other constitutional issues. He has also made numerous media appearances, and his work has been featured at USA Today, The Federalist, and Townhall, among others. Or if you prefer the 140 character versions, you can find him at @CaseyMattox_.

He earned his J.D. from Boston College Law School in 2001, and clerked for the Alabama Supreme Court.

Questions:

1. How would you respond to someone who defends free speech violations by saying that the first amendment does not guarantee a right to be heard?
2. How would you respond to someone who says, "If you go to a public area to express your free speech rights but get drowned out by someone else expressing their free speech rights, you don't get to shut down someone else's rights because you want to be heard"?
3. Can you talk about the concept of a "heckler's veto"?
4. What should students do if they're trying to have a dialogue event and the pro-choice crowd comes out with noisemakers to drown that out, and the campus administration won't do anything about it?
5. The First Amendment isn't ambiguous about whether or not people can physically block people from a speaking event, so why is that still sometimes happening? Are the penalties not big enough?
6. Is there any path forward at a legal level to get around this problem? A way that would cause universities to get penalized in a way that would incentivize them to follow the law?
7. What is the difference between a case where you're able to successfully sue the school versus a case where you don't have enough evidence to move forward? What should students do to make sure that their cases don't end up in the pile of cases where nothing happens?
8. What are some red flags that students should look out for so they can know when to call ADF?
9. How would you respond to someone who defends free speech violations based on the idea that if the speech in question is dangerous, like Naziism, then it's good to block people from hearing that speech or even get violent in response to it?

Josh, Tim, and Jacob sit down to respond to more listener mail questions. Topics include pro-choice Fetus Tunnel Vision, whether or not we should allow people to "insta-correct" their views, and what to do if they say, "Let's just agree to disagree."

Josh, Tim, and Rachel sit down to discuss the James Franco/Liz Harman video about abortion that was mocked mercilessly by pro-life organizations and advocates recently. We agree with a few conservative philosophers who believe that while Harman's pro-choice argument is wrong, it's not as stupid as it sounds. We believe Harman did a bad job explaining her argument in the video. So in this episode, we work hard to understand Harman's actual views and respond to them instead of strawmanning them.

This is certainly the most philosophical podcast episode we've recorded to date. If you're not interested in getting deep into the weeds with us on Harman's argument, we'd still like to encourage you to listen to the first and last sections of this episode, where we discuss the problems with the pro-life movement's general response to this video. Those sections are 00:00 to 21:15, and 1:20:50 to the end.

If you haven't watched the video of James Franco's interview with Liz Harman, please watch it before you listen to this podcast.

Here is Harman's definition of the Actual Future Principle: "An early fetus that will become a person has some moral status. An early fetus that will die while it is still an early fetus has no moral status."

Here are the five intuitions that Harman agrees with and believes that her Actual Future Principle helps to explain:

1. That some early fetuses are the appropriate objects of caring attitudes;
2. That some early fetuses are the kinds of things we are prohibited from harming;
3. That it is understandable to be upset be an early miscarriage;
4. That the position of a woman genuinely unsure whether she will abort her pregnancy is unique;
5. That it is reasonable to regret an abortion when one does not regret the choice to abort.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel answer your questions!

Questions:

1. This question from Ellen on the forum prompts a larger discussion of labels that pro-life and pro-choice people use for either side, what precisely is so wrong with "pro-abort," as well as labels used for the unborn: "I think a good thing to discuss on the podcast or just here on the forum is issues within the movement and how we should approach them . . . Also, dealing with people who are super entrenched in some of the habits mentioned in module one. I know several people who can't talk about abortion without using terms like "deathscort" and "pro-abort."
2. Ellen: "Another one that comes to mind is how many major pro-life organizations both nationally and locally feel the need to also include topics such as traditional marriage as part of their message. I'm a Christian myself so I don't even necessarily disagree with their views on this, but it just seems like a weird, unrelated thing to bring up. It makes it difficult for me to involve my atheist, LGBT friends in pro-life events."
3. Malessa from Australia: "When having discussions about the equality of the pre-born, do you get push back about equality of homosexuals? I know these are two very different discussions, and no one is talking about killing homosexuals because they are unequal/not human, but I imagine the 'marriage equality' topic may come up in conversations. Maybe not so much in the US since the Supreme Court ruling, but here in Australia same-sex marriage is still not recognized/legally valid relationship, so I imagine someone calling me some sort of hypocrite if I use the word "equality" and yet am against SSM."
4. Jason: "How do you respond to a friend who has had a lot of good experiences at Planned Parenthood and says that she will support them no matter what?"

Related Link:

• Secular Pro-Life article published on how they felt as atheists at a seminar Josh Brahm led

Josh, Tim, and Rachel Crawford finish their discussion on relational apologetics. In this episode we focus on multiple arguments for doing this as well as 12 practical tips:

1. Don't be a jerk.
2. Avoid long public Facebook debates. Start with email but try to eventually move to Skype or in person.
3. Don't think of this as a war. Daniel Cohen at TED: "If argument equals war, then learning equals losing."
4. Be obviously open-minded.
5. Don't think of the other person as your project, or a potential notch for your belt.
6. Actively work to break down stereotypes about pro-lifers.
7. Understand the value of arguments.
8. Don't just debate issues.
9. As far as religion goes, don't hide your beliefs or pretend like it doesn't influence your position if it does, but also don't drown them in a faith discussion if they aren't interested.
10. Allow the person to remain unconvinced.
11. It is okay to follow cues and make educated guesses to factor into how you make arguments, but don't treat even a well-educated guess as hard fact.
12. If you've talked with them extensively, give them the "inside scoop" into your pro-life work.

Related Links:

• Click here for Josh's post with links and more embedded videos of Jim Henderson's interview with Ira Glass.
• Click here for the full interview Joe Rogan did with documentary maker Louis Theroux.
• Click here for more on the Penn Jillette quotation, as well as his fascinating video on how Christians would have to hate the people they don't try to convert.
• Click here for the full Phil Plait speech at The Amazing Meeting (TAM) that Josh referenced.
• Click here for a shareable version of Tim's adaptation of 1 Corinthians 13 for pro-life apologists.

Rachel Crawford joins Josh and Tim to discuss relational apologetics for the next two episodes. In this episode we focus on some stories that emphasize different aspects of relational apologetics, and in the next episode we'll focus on multiple arguments for doing this as well as 12 practical tips.

This episode also includes a brief discussion on how to deal with being angry with pro-choice people for the things they say.

Related Links:

• Click here to read the endorsement that Rachel's pro-choice friend Amanda wrote for Rachel's staff page.
• Click here to read the De Facto Guardian (DFG) paper that Josh and Tim referenced.
• Click here to read Roni's account of the time she met Josh, Steve Wagner, and Clinton Wilcox. This is part four of her six-part series on her process of becoming pro-life. Here is part one, part two ("JB" refers to Josh), part three, part five, and part six.
• Learn more about confirmation bias in module one of the Equipped for Life Course at equippedcourse.com.

While Rachel Crawford was in town we spontaneously decided to record some improvised roleplay dialogues as well as some post-roleplay commentary. Nothing was scripted out, but it ended up going really well so we decided to turn them into podcast episodes. In this episode you'll hear Tim play the pro-choice side against Rachel, as well as our discussions afterward about what Rachel did well and what could have been better.