Five Things You Need to Do to Outlaw Abortion

For a moment, let me talk to the wonderful and rational anonymous strangers who have opinions on the internet, so that we might engage in a nice, warm, friendly conversation:

Abortion! 

Since the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973, there's been a never ending series of protests and arguments both for and against the Courts decision to a level that's unprecedented. There hasn't been a single more divisive case in the history of the Supreme Court (with the exception of Twilight: Edward v. Jacob, of course.)

Speaking of divisive, while I'm not pro-life, I'm definitely pro-discourse. I want a world in which civilized discussion determines important things like policy, morality, and whether crunchy or smooth peanut butter goes best with PB&J's. Discussion with well constructed arguments is a critical means of discerning right from wrong.

Unfortunately, when it comes to abortion, discourse breaks down almost immediately. This is partly because of the passion of the parties involved, but mostly because these two sides aren't just in opposition over the legality or morality of the act- they believe they're dealing with completely different scenarios. One side feels they're protecting the privacy and freedom of choice for women, who they feel need protection from the collective. The other side feels they're protecting unborn children, who they feel need protection from their mothers. We can't even decide what we're going to argue about. Good luck trying to win that argument, from either side.

I'm pro-choice. You might not agree with me, and I sincerely think that's awesome. I hope you voice your opinions! However, if you want Roe v. Wade overturned, then you have to convince people that it needs to be overturned, because that's the only way you're going to elect enough Presidents to nominate enough Justices who can be appointed by the correct ratio of Congress to overturn the ruling (barring an unexpected ruling on HB2 which, for the record, is absolute horseshit.)

And believe it or not, I'm here to help. So, if I may, I'd like to present the five things that pro-life people need to do to propel the discussion in any meaningful direction.

1. Acknowledge that you need to present an argument.

First things first: I respect your emotions.

I'm not going to pretend that this isn't something to get passionate about. If you believe that abortion is murder, then you're probably absolutely furious that it's happening at the rate it's happening, and that not enough people seem to care. However, you have to bury these emotions, because they're not helping your cause. Elevating emotions in arguments never works as it's intended to.
In order to convince somebody of something, the very first step is to separate the topic from any 

emotional involvement, because emotions won't help you.

I understand this is incredibly difficult. For some people, that's demanding the impossible- trying to hide their emotions would be like losing a part of themselves. But you have to understand that people who are pro-choice decided their position via their own logic and emotions, and, like you, they might think their opinion on the matter is an extension of who they are. Separate the discussion from anger, use logic, speak at a reasonable volume, and frame the discussion so that people are arguing points in a case. If your opponents feel like they're defending their arguments, and not themselves, you can at least get people to acknowledge you, if not listen to you. And getting somebody to talk to you is the first step to convince them of anything.

In a way, presenting an argument is a lot like trying to make a sale. You have a prospective client and you want them to do something. Now read this quote from forbes.com:

Sales coach and author Wendy Weiss, also known as The Queen of Cold Calling, says too many salespeople make fundamental mistakes early on. “Dedicate more time to the process upfront,” she says. “Salespeople are so fixated on the end result—closing the sale—that they neglect the important initial steps.”

You need a logical case to support the claim that abortion isn't morally acceptable; a sales pitch, if you will. If you want to change enough people's minds, you have to start here.

The next step is hearing the counter offer...

2. Acknowledge the social benefits of abortion.

First, this is not the same as saying that, as a whole, abortion is good for society. But it does mean understanding that, in specific ways, abortion has benefited many people in profound ways. For instance, look at this chart:

As Steven D. Levitt pointed out in Freakonomics, legalizing abortion drastically reduced violent crime rates in the US.

You can read more about it here, but the gist is basically this: when women were able to decide whether or not to give birth to children while they were in poverty, it decreased the number of poverty stricken adults in 18-22 years after the Court's decision. Fewer people in poverty means less crime, which is that big downward slope you see in that chart up there.  See how around 1994, or 21 years after Roe v. Wade, that chart starts dropping?  It's not a coincidence. 

Now, if you're trying to outlaw abortion, than your job isn't to disprove this statement, because objective data doesn't work in your favor. Unless you can argue people into believing a false reality, then you don't want to go this route.

No, your job is to convince people that even though there was a drop in crime, it wasn't worth it. This sounds daunting, but it might be easier than you think, because a very sound argument against the reduction in crime is basically this: A thirty percent reduction in crime isn't worth it if the cost is the murder of millions of people. 

That's what the argument boils down to, right? Abortion, according to the pro-life crowd, is murder, and murder is wrong. Murder has to be wrong- no society can function if the quickest, most efficient way to manage a disagreement or solve any problem is to kill another human being.

However, in order to prove that abortion is murdering a human being, you have to...

3. Determine the logically consistent point in which a fetus becomes a person.

I'll admit it: I'm not sure this is even possible.

The most common point listed by the pro-life crowd is at the “moment of conception.” The problem is that “conception” takes a lot more time than a moment. 

This is probably the biggest difference in the mindset of the pro-life and pro-choice people. A fetus, at any given point between the development of the male sperm or female egg, all the way until the exact instance the umbilical cord is cut, is either a human being- a separate entity that deserves the same rights as every other human being- or it's just another collection of cells in the human body. Without the exact definition of when a fetus becomes a human, we're at the “different scenarios” problem I mentioned earlier: one person thinks an abortion is murder, and another person thinking an abortion is as controversial as a haircut. There is literally no way to debate any issue under these circumstances. If you try, you'll lose. That's why you need a logically consistent definition of when humanity occurs.

This is the hardest obstacle any pro-life person will have to overcome. When does it happen? At what week? At what point in development? Is it when the sperm meets the egg? Hopefully not- even in a successful pregnancy, eggs are fertilized by sperm, and a lot of those don't end in pregnancy, because they don't stick to the lining of the uterus.

Is it when the fertilized egg sticks to the lining of the uterus? I'd hope not- you'd have to investigate every single sexually active woman, to ensure that every single time she had sex it didn't end with the implantation of the zygote, and menstruation happening anyway. Because that happens all the time, and if that's when a fetus is a child, then it's murder, and in our society, we don't get to pick and choose which murders get prosecuted- that's arbitrary. That's not how society, or even the world works.

When it comes to arbitrary, you have to be careful. People can see through arbitrary designation. When you claim that a human being exists at a certain time, and somebody asks "Why then?" you need to give them backing, and not just because that's the time you picked. The only time “because I said so” works is when your trying to talk your kids out of using their crayons to color the cat, and ask any parent, they'll tell you the success rate of that is a coin flip, at best.

Like I said, I don't envy the position of the person who's trying to make this determination and defend it, but in order for your side to have any merit, it's something you have to do.

Maybe you don't want to think so specifically. Maybe you think that once a pregnancy is confirmed, that's it. It's a child. Since pregnancy is a very real, even likely consequence of intercourse, nitpicking the finer details of the “when” isn't really important. What's really important, you're possibly thinking, is that somebody who had sex should realize that this is what could have happened. If they understood the very real possibility of pregnancy, and had sex anyway, then they should be more concerned with protecting their own flesh-and-blood than nitpicking scientific semantics as an excuse to remove themselves from their responsibility.

Or maybe you think something similar, and don't care for me creating straw-men. Fine, I'll stop. The point is this: Remember, what we're talking about, what Roe v. Wade was talking about, isn't sex. It's abortion. So in order to continue the abortion discussion, you have to...

4. Only talk about abortion.

I've been told, I mean, I ABSOLUTELY KNOW BECAUSE I HAVE ALL OF THE EXPERIENCE, that sex is awesome. I've also been told that having sex with somebody you haven't married is immoral, and makes Jesus cry. (It might be worth noting that one person has told me all of those things, including the awesome part, sometimes in the same sentence.) There are a large number of pro-life people who see sex between people who aren't married as immoral. Virtually, all of these arguments are rooted in religious texts, and in said texts there are rules against actions or thoughts that a supreme deity of some variety doesn't want people to do. (The internet has told me that these are called “sins.”)

This fucks your argument up not once, but twice- the first way is that it creates an equivalence between abortion and sex.  People like sex.  It is, biologically speaking, the reason we do just about anything.  Secondly, taking this a step further, this also creates an equivalence between abortion and wearing mixed fabrics. And while cheap, scratchy polyester/cotton blends is definitely something worth burning in the streets, you can't convince somebody to ban something if they think you equate it to something that's utterly harmless. Hell, I'd even margin that many of the women who have received abortions did so when they had long hair- which in certain situations is a sin.

A sexy, sexy sin.

And we have to talk about the other people. You know the type. The LOUD people. They might be the guys in the YouTube comments section, saying things that are somehow nonsensical AND offensive.

Wait, what?

Or maybe, they're the guys who promise to cure people's cancer while they convince their financially troubled followers to buy them jets.

That's Robert Tildon, whose net worth is close to a billion dollars.  Him, and people like him, only want sex to happen between either 1. a married man and woman, or 2. a confused altar boy and a consenting priest.

These are the monsters who need people to follow the religion they preach in the way they preach it, and that means no sex for recreation- it's distracting from their profits. Make a few kids so you can leave behind somebody to support the brand, and that's all the sex we need from you, thank you very much.

None of these people help your argument. If you want to convince people that abortion is murder, then siding with any of these shitbags won't do anything but piss people off. And as I've said before, pissing people off isn't in the play book of convincing them that they're wrong about a certain issue.

While we're talking about what you should and shouldn't do...

5. Focus the argument against abortion, not abortion providers.

Recently, a grandjury indited the creators of a video that investigated Planned Parenthood, because when they were trying to convince Planned Parenthood that they were trying to buy baby parts using fake ID's, they were committing the crimes of falsifying identification and attempting to buy human organs.

This is important for a couple of reasons. The first is that it demonstrates how you are more likely to metaphorically kick yourself in the dick by trying to subvert logical arguments in favor of manipulating public opinions. The second is that it shows where the justice system currently stands on the notion of whether a fetus is a human being, because the people who made this bullshit video were charged for attempting to purchase parts, not people. That's an important distinction. They aren't charged with buying human beings.

And shouldn't the accused have protested this? You would think that if they really believed that a fetus is a human being, they'd ask the charges be elevated to human trafficking. The easiest way to prove that you don't really have a case is when you can change your terms for the sake of convenience.

Not only did they fuck up their own case, but they put a dent in the case of pro-life people everywhere. It's the same with the clown-shit Santa Claus lookalike who shot a bunch of people in Colorado Springs, or any person who decides to skip the conversation completely and go straight to violence.

It may not look like it, but you don't want this man as your spokesperson.

There's an old saying: “Violence isn't the answer.” I wish they would change that, because sometimes, violence is the answer, but only if you're stupid. Remember when you were a kid, and every disagreement ended with either a time-out or a fistfight? Do you remember anyone agreeing after that? I don't. I remember the people who were the most violent (sometimes this was me) getting punished, and the rest of the class moving on like nothing happened, except for occasionally giving a load of shit to the idiot who thought it was a good idea to fight somebody over a game of Pogs in the first grade. (Again, this might have been me.)

That's who we're talking about. The people who use guns and bombs are the children who could never win the war of words, which means that they were never able to get what they wanted, unless they wanted to hurt people (which is what I think we're all trying to stop.)

Don't be one of those people.

Like I said, I don't envy the position of the person who is in charge of putting the case against abortion together. You've got a lot against you; there's the current law, there's the ambiguous articulation of people who are trying to work on your behalf, and there's plenty of people who agree with you but are too goddamn stupid to do anything but get in your way.

But I understand where you're coming from. You, like most people, don't like abortion, and want it to end. That's fair, even though I think you're misguided. But it's not going to stop if you don't use the right tactics.

I won't say good luck, but I will say that by debating, you're doing the right thing.

Sam lives in Austin, Texas, and doesn't feel great about googling "human trafficking" and "abortion clinic shootings" in the same day.  Follow him on twitter, or email him at swellbo@gmail.com.