JFA Blog — Justice For All

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Steve Wagner

They Stop and Think (Then We Pray)

While our culture is drowning every day in new content embraced through shiny devices, we have the privilege of mobilizing Christians to show up to encourage each individual to stop and think. We listen to understand, ask questions with an open heart, and find common ground throughout every interaction. Then we work to challenge each person to love all of the people touched by unplanned pregnancy, especially the unborn child who is forgotten by so many. Thank you for your support!

What many people we reach don’t realize is that our team of supporters prays with us to ask and trust God to follow up and specially care for each person we’ve met. In this Impact Report, we share names and pictures of a few of the people we met in 2024. (See more pictures and stories at www.jfaweb.org/blog.) Please give a generous year-end gift to help us reach thousands more in 2025.

Pray with us for…

Let’s Cause Thousands to Stop and Think in 2025

What does it take for the content of the truth to sink into a person’s mind and heart? Is hearing or seeing enough? Our culture is filled with more data, inputs, and content than ever before, but we are at risk of being one of the least thoughtful cultures ever. The antidote? Cause people to stop and think. They need to stop not just for a moment, but for long enough to allow them to interactively consider what’s true. This is why one of our passions is conversations. (See our October Update, “Connecting the Dots” for one example.)

When our trainers and volunteers step out and create conversations, we ask questions that cause the other person to stop and think. Imagine the impact of thousands of Christians who are trained to be skillful advocates who start conversations and make them productive encounters filled with listening, asking questions, and offering respectful challenges. We’re passionate about these advocates because they then take what they’ve learned and, long after our event is over, continue changing their world one person at a time. During each outreach event we see a different kind of advocate creating a different kind of conversation, and we see the beginnings of a different kind of world in which elective abortion is unthinkable. Our strategy is aimed at long-term systemic change that’s only possible when many thousands of individual minds and hearts change. If you share our passion for conversations and advocates that God can use to change the world, please consider supporting JFA’s work with a generous year-end gift or a pledge of regular support.

When you give a gift to JFA (jfaweb.org/donate), it creates moments to “stop and think” by…

  • … transporting our trainers to events in CA, CO, TX, OK, KS, MO, NE, MI, VA, and elsewhere through flights, rental cars, and mileage reimbursements.

  • … helping us be present in 10 metro areas including increased activity in Denver (Kristine), NW Arkansas (Alora), Kansas City (Kristina), and Grand Rapids (Kaitlyn). (See our August update: “New Team Members and New Cities.”)

  • … helping us reach more people through small-scale events. (See our September update: “Team Be Nimble.”)

  • … allowing us to create new copies of our smaller exhibits and to experiment with new content so we can find the tools that attract more people to stop and think.

  • … providing new dialogue brochures for our campus events.

  • … enabling us to provide Seat Work + Feet Work training to Christians in more places.

  • … providing computers, projectors, and other technologies that enable us to reach more people through workshops, presentations, emails, letters, and social media.

Thank you for partnering with JFA. If you send regular financial support or host our trainers in your home or provide meals or pray for us or volunteer at events or share our training with others, you are already doing so much to help JFA make a difference. Thank you.

But What Is It?

But what is it? That’s the question that very rarely gets asked or answered.

I watched the portion of the debate between the vice presidential candidates that focused on abortion (pictured). That question kept ringing in my head, but it didn’t really get any time in the segment. True, JD Vance tried to get clarification on one “what is it?” question, related to the Minnesota abortion law: “What specifically does the Minnesota abortion law allow and not allow?” Indeed, it would have been nice to get a clear answer to that question. If we had, we’d have also gotten close to the edge of the question, “What is it?” related to abortion itself.

If the segment had led to the question, “What is abortion?” it would have been illuminating. Indeed, if we spent more time considering what abortion is itself, it would inevitably lead to the most important “What is it?” question: “What is the unborn?”

That question, “What is the unborn?” is the one that rings in my head throughout any exchange on abortion rights or women’s rights or bodily rights. It’s the first question we have to resolve in order to get any clarity about the others. True, the questions of a woman’s bodily rights or life-threatening pregnancy complications or what a just law would be on abortion are all important questions. But we can’t answer them without addressing this first central question: “But what is it?” Meaning, “What is the unborn?”

So, let’s say I’ve convinced you, and this question is now ringing in your head. Perhaps for you it’s even like a knee-jerk reaction every time the topic of abortion is discussed, as it is for me. But what do we do with this knee-jerk reaction? Do we insert that question robotically, as if it’s the first and only item on a meeting agenda? That won’t do. To win the right to bring clarity to the importance of this one question, our team has found that saying two other words many times and early in a conversation can sometimes make all the difference. What two words? “I agree.”

Find common ground about difficult circumstances confronting pregnant women. Find common ground about serious injustices violating a woman’s right to be free of sexual assault and other abuse. Find common ground about the difficulty confronting women who find themselves in a high-risk pregnancy situation.

We don’t only find common ground, though, and neglect to shed light on what is right and wrong about abortion. And that’s where our central question comes in: “But what is it? What is the unborn?”

So, here’s my suggestion: Remember the sentence, “I agree, but what is it?” Then use that as a structure for the conversation to remind you of these two important things to emphasize in the conversation. I’d spend a lot of time and energy on the first part, “I agree,” but I’d also work hard to not let the “but what is it?” question get lost.

So, when someone says, “women will die of pregnancy complications if abortion is illegal,” I’ll spend three to five minutes showing concern for those situations and agreeing that each woman is important in herself and not just as a talking point in a conversation. I’ll ask the other person if she agrees with what I’m saying. I’ll take time to discuss this. But then I’ll say, “It’s difficult to know which options to offer the woman, though, if I don’t even know how many people are in the hospital room with her. If the unborn is a human being, then that’s going to affect how we proceed in any life-threatening circumstance. Should she be able to get an abortion? Well, if the unborn is a human being, and abortion causes the death of that human being, then we would avoid abortion if at all possible in seeking to save her life.”

That’s the clarity that “but what is it?” brings to the conversation. I admit that it doesn’t answer all the questions about life-threatening circumstances. But it answers the first question, the central question that must be answered in order to make any progress on a solution.

So, the “what is the unborn?” question is like a gate on a roadway. You have to open the gate to pass.

Or, to put it in philosophical terms, it’s a necessary condition for getting to a practical solution. It’s not a sufficient condition - it’s not “all you need.” But it is a necessary condition - it’s “got to be there.”

Here’s another example: Walz emphasized in the debate that women need to control their bodies and make their own decisions.

I’m going to follow my strategy reminder I laid out in the sentence above: “I agree, but what is it?”

I’ll begin with three to five minutes of emphasizing how a woman’s right to be free from assault and other abuse is still important and still under grave attack all over the world. (I’m not talking here about how much time someone should spend on this in a debate, of course…I’m talking about the more common situation in which all of us find ourselves regularly, where the topic comes up and we have a choice of how to engage and for how long. In a formal debate, one could use the same strategy, but we would have to settle for putting it in soundbites.) I’ll emphasize my concern for safety of women and respect of women. At some point early in the conversation, though, I want to also make sure the unborn is not forgotten or invisible. I’ll ask some form of, “but what is it?” Is the unborn a human?

If we’re talking about whether a woman’s bodily rights entail killing the unborn through elective abortion, we’d better get an answer to the question, “What is the unborn?” I’m going to aim to spend an equal amount of time on this question, too: three to five minutes. (Again, in a formal debate we’d have to put these same ideas into soundbites.) I’ll aim to help the person with whom I’m speaking to see the unborn human with new clarity through images and arguments. (See the notes from session two and session three of our Love3 course for help on this.)

If the unborn is a real human being, as we can demonstrate that she is, then it doesn’t immediately tell us what to think about the right to abortion, but rather, it just clarifies that there are, in fact, two human beings in the picture, and each of these human beings, the woman and the unborn child, has an equal right to his or her body. Then we can move forward to consider whether the right to the body that the woman has means she can kill another human being located inside of her body, another human being who has a right to his body. In our work on bodily rights over many years, we’ve gone to great lengths to show that her right to her body does not entail the right to kill her unborn child. See our “It’s Her Body” series, which includes a 20-page response to the strongest version of the bodily rights argument for abortion.

So, remember this simple sentence to remind you of the strategy that will shed the most light in the least amount of time: “I agree, but what is it?” We find common ground because it’s true that the person is making good points, and it helps the person to want to hear the rest of our perspective. Then we move the conversation forward with some form of the question, “What is the unborn?” because that question is a necessary condition for answering the question, “Can I kill this?”

I’d like to mention that I owe this strategy to two of my mentors, Scott Klusendorf and Greg Koukl. I’ve probably heard both of these men say something very similar (or exactly similar) to the sentence, “I agree, but what is it?” many times in the past. I’ve been emphasizing it for the past 23 years. They’ve been emphasizing it even longer, since the late 1990s. For my part, I’ve been open to re-evaluating it or changing the emphasis or abandoning it. But it has stood the test of time and experience. Our team has tested this question, and the strategy I outline above, combining it with common ground, in thousands and thousands of conversations. It isn’t failsafe or foolproof. But it does bring the important first step of clarity to very complicated issues.

Without the question, “But what is it?” the conversation is mostly just slogans and noise. That’s not only a sad waste of time. It’s deadly, because the unborn child continues to be the last thing on everyone’s mind. Let’s change that. Let’s say, “I agree, but what is it?” and put the unborn back where they belong, right in the middle of the conversation about women’s rights and just laws.

New Team Members and New Cities

(1) Kristine (right) talks to a student at Cal State San Marcos at JFA's outreach event in Oct. 2023

(2) Alora (center) interacts with a student at Wayne State College earlier this week (during the first week of her internship!).

Rejoice with us!

Kristine Hunerwadel (1) just joined our team as a trainer working from Denver, Colorado. Alora Tunstill (2) just began a fall internship, based in Northwest Arkansas. JFA trainer Kristina Massa (3) recently relocated to Kansas City. Kristine, Alora, and Kristina will help greatly expand JFA’s training efforts in these areas. Denver and Kansas City are established metro areas, and Northwest Arkansas is the 13th most rapidly growing metro area in the country.

(3) Kristina (center) at University of Nebraska at Kearney in May 2024.

We’re excited about these new team members and new cities, but we’re also excited about the ongoing local efforts of our trainers in other regions (see Metro Area list below). Look for us to do more in all of these areas in the coming year. Look for us also to continue our work in regions where we have dedicated volunteers and church connections even if we don’t have full-time trainers based there...yet (Arizona, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and others).

Our team is working across the country to train Christians through workshops and outreach events to change hearts and minds. Please pray that God will use these efforts to save unborn children and their parents from abortion. Would you give a special gift this month or commit to become a monthly partner to support the excellent work of these trainers?

  Steve Wagner, Executive Director

10 Metro Areas Where JFA Trainers Live

3,200,000 CA San Diego Rebekah

3,000,000 CO Denver Kristine

2,400,000 TX Austin Jeremy

8,100,000 TX Dallas Jon

590,000 AR Fayetteville Andrea, Alora

653,000 KS Wichita Paul, Tammy, Susanna

2,200,000 MO Kansas City Kristina

344,000 NE Lincoln Mary, Rebecca

2,100,000 OH Cleveland Kaitlyn

6,300,000 DC Washington Steve

(Population Numbers Refer to Metropolitan Statistical Area, per Wikipedia)

Upcoming Outreach Events

8/26-28 Wayne State College (Wayne, NE)

9/9-10 Colorado State Univ. (Fort Collins)

9/11 Univ. of Northern Colorado (Greeley)

9/30-10/1 Minnesota TBD

10/8-9 Mira Costa College (Oceanside, CA)

10/28-29 Univ. of Central Oklahoma (Edmond)

11/18-20 UTSA (San Antonio)

11/18-20 Johnson County CC (Kansas City Area)

See JFA’s Newly Redesigned Calendar Page for More Events, All Event Details, and to Register.

What God Can Do Through Every Human Being

What God Can Do Through Every Human Being

This month we report on a different kind of impact that God has created through JFA, specifically through the work of our office manager, Eva Heath. This is the story of the impact God produces through human beings many have written off because of their circumstances or disabilities. It’s also the story of one woman’s testimony that even if we can’t see the good that God is bringing from difficulties right now, we must hope in Him, loving every human being precisely because each person is made in the image of God. We bid a fond farewell to you this month, Eva, and we trust God will care for you in the new chapter of your retirement!

Suggested Reading: “I'd Rather Be Aborted.”

It’s such a simple mistake, and it’s so easy to prevent. Many pro-life advocates process statements defending abortion only intellectually. This causes them either to immediately launch into an intellectual response or to stay silent because they haven't studied the particulars of the topics raised. If they will simply pause, though, and take time to sympathize with what the person is saying, they can not only find something to say, but they can also say precisely the thing that will open the other person’s heart to the unborn child.

Rebekah Dyer gives excellent teaching on how to employ this insight with one common abortion-choice argument in her recent post for the Human Defense Initiative (HDI): “I’d Rather Be Aborted.” Click the image or this link to read an updated version of the article.

In virtually every training event we lead, whether it’s an interactive workshop or an outreach event where volunteers are learning to converse with people who disagree, we emphasize this need to “be relational first, and then be intellectual.” I suggest sharing Rebekah’s letter with others to help them learn this easy strategy that can transform conversations. Thank you for helping us bring this essential equipping to Christians all over the country

Only Two Questions?

Alan Shlemon has been one of my closest friends since the late 1990s, but after all these years, his answer surprised me. Late last year, our outreach team was about to sit down to dinner in his home, and I asked a version of this question: “What’s the minimum amount of training you think someone needs in order to have a successful conversation on a difficult topic?”

Alan Shlemon of Stand to Reason (right) interacts with a student at JFA’s “Stop and Think” outreach at UCLA in May 2016. Although we don’t know everything Alan was covering in this conversation, we do know for certain he was employing the two questions what and why and modeling the approach we discuss in this post.

Alan is a speaker at Stand to Reason (www.str.org), and like the trainers at Justice For All (JFA), he regularly equips Christians to talk about the most thorny and complicated topics in the culture. I expected Alan to say something like “four or five hours” since just one topic can bring up a myriad of facts, questions, and arguments, let alone all of the related topics people inevitably also raise.

Instead, Alan said he really only needed just a few minutes to teach people to use the Columbo Tactic. He was referring to asking questions that gather information and request reasons. (STR’s Greg Koukl named this tactic after the beloved, bumbling 1970’s detective who solved his crimes by asking questions.) That was it? All people need is to learn to ask a couple of questions?

I quickly realized, though, that Alan was simply reminding me of what I and other JFA trainers have been teaching for years: “Learn to ask two questions, and you can make an impact in any conversation on any topic with anyone anytime anywhere.” What two questions? The same ones to which Alan was referring: what and why. These questions help us gather information (What do you believe? What did you mean by that?) and ask people to give reasons for the claims they make (Why do you believe that? How did you come to that conclusion?). These two questions also “get us out of the hot seat and into the driver’s seat of the conversation,” as Greg Koukl has often said.

Now, I don’t mean you can ask these questions in any way and expect them to create productive dialogue. Obviously, we need to follow these questions up with “listening to understand.” We’ve also found that accompanying these questions with a desire to find common ground (“I agree… I think you’re making a good point”) and an attitude of humility (“I know I’m mistaken about some things, and you might have insight that will shed light on which of my beliefs are false”) helps the two questions make their impact. In this way you can also create a context in which the person is more likely to be open to a third type of question that challenges his or her beliefs.

So, if you’re afraid to engage friends or family in conversation about difficult topics, I suggest you focus on developing your ability to ask these two questions, what and why. How? Start practicing. What’s great about these questions is that you don’t have to do the heavy lifting. You only have to figure out what words need to be clarified and what parts of the person’s view are unclear (ask some question that begins with “what did you mean…?”). Then once you have the person’s view clarified, you can think of her view like the roof of a house. What does a roof need in order to be a roof? Walls. So you then ask the person to build walls that support her roof (ask some question that begins with “why do you believe…?” or “how did you come to this conclusion?”).

You can even practice this approach and these questions on topics that don’t have to do with controversial issues; I’m referring to the conversations you have with the people closest to you that become tense and frequently devolve into hurt feelings. Instead of assuming you know what your spouse or child or friend meant, ask “what did you mean when you said…?” Instead of assuming you know how she would support her view, ask “what reasons for this view are persuasive to you?”

I’m confident you’ll find that you can create productive conversations you never thought possible. In fact, people frequently report to our team during our campus events things like, “This was the best conversation I’ve ever had.” Sure, members of the JFA team have a lot of experience, and I consider them experts. But even someone with no experience, a conversation beginner, can experience the same extraordinary results. You can start today to develop these skills. Just focus on asking these two questions!

Thank you for partnering with us as we help pro-life advocates and Christians get started changing hearts and minds with simple tools like these.

Jan. 2025 Update: Note that this letter is the third of a series of three letters Steve wrote from February 2023 until March 2024 - letters focused on conversations skills we teach volunteers that help them get started having conversations and encourage them to stay active. Here are links to the series, including this letter, so you can see how it fits in the flow of thought:

  1. “Be a Playmaker” (Feb. 2023): on the importance of setting the right expectations for results and seeing your advocacy as one piece of a bigger puzzle

  2. “Thinking about the Unborn Child for the First Time” (May 2023): on being relational then intellectual

  3. “Only Two Questions?” (this letter, March 2024): on the two clarification questions that can help you make an impact in any conversation

See Other Letters in this Series

Should We Flip-Flop When Someone Flips Out?

JFA trainer Kristina Massa was surprised when an angry young woman lashed out at a poll table sign at our outreach event at Boise State in the fall. She was even more surprised at the conversation that followed. Through her retelling in a recent letter, “Flipping Tables in the Courtyard” (enclosed, or see www.jfaweb.org/jan-2024), Kristina provides a great model for deciding “what to say when,” and she illustrates the sort of balanced approach all JFA trainers aim to exhibit in every conversation. Please read her letter, and then I’ll explain.

Note how Kristina doesn’t shy away from the young woman’s question about homosexuality and marriage. You might think this would lead to a distraction from the main topic. While controversial questions can be a distraction in some abortion conversations, in this instance addressing the topic turned out to be helpful.

Click here for the Printable Version.

Kristina answered the young woman’s questions directly and honestly, giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was asking in good faith and not intending to trap. Kristina didn’t try to hide her views on sexuality and marriage, even though she knew they were very controversial. She didn’t go weak-kneed or change her views because this woman had flipped out by “flipping tables” (her words). Instead, Kristina gave a straightforward answer with a reasonable explanation, and she also avoided expressing her views in an unnecessarily harsh way.

Then Kristina prayed with the young woman, banking on the fact that they shared similar backgrounds in Christian communities. Rather than focusing on the differences she definitely had with this woman regarding beliefs about God, Jesus, and how we should live, Kristina focused on the small sliver of common ground that this woman had implied earlier, that she did consider herself to be following Jesus.

With many people who vehemently disagree with us on difficult topics, we have found this approach to be disarming and bridge-building. In this case, I am guessing that this woman appreciated the fact that Kristina showed interest in a passion of hers. I believe the woman also felt dignified by Kristina’s decision to trust her with what she really thought.

Conversations with Helen and Lisa

Thank you for supporting JFA’s work this year. We’ve been especially encouraged by the efforts of our fall 2023 interns, Seth and Catherine. In this Impact Report, you’ll read first-hand accounts of their conversations with “Helen” and “Lisa.” You can see both interns in action in the banner image and at the end of this post. Catherine will continue to volunteer with JFA in the coming months, and Seth is now raising support to work full-time as a Training Specialist. We thank God for these talented pro-life advocates, and we thank God for your partnership that has helped them make an impact.

You can still give a year-end gift at www.jfaweb.org/donate, or you can give a year-end gift by mail using the enclosed giving form and envelope. To receive a 2023 donation receipt, make sure gifts are submitted online or postmarked by December 31, 2023. Merry Christmas!

-Steve Wagner

IF WE HAD NOT GONE…

By Catherine Gimino, Fall 2023 Intern

“Helen” was unsure of her words, not just because we had interrupted her morning walk to class with an unexpected survey on abortion, but also because she was a foreign exchange student and new to speaking English. Despite this added difficulty with an already culturally-loaded topic, she was very willing to talk. I began by asking her questions to understand her view on abortion. Her view was that the unborn is not human until birth and so abortion at any stage is acceptable.

I walked her through what biology teaches us about the unborn, showing her that they are human beings starting at fertilization. I used Trot Out The Toddler and the Equal Rights Argument, tools taught by JFA to keep the conversation focused and to show that the unborn are human beings with an equal right to life. My attempts to clearly lay out the arguments were far from perfect. Despite feeling discouraged by my lack of eloquence, I kept going.

I eventually asked my coworker Kristina to jump in. She asked Helen, “Based off of what you’ve heard, do you think differently about abortion?” Helen responded saying that abortion should be illegal through all nine months and that she would support pro-life laws!

After Helen left, we debriefed the conversation. I told Kristina that I thought I could have explained things more clearly, but Kristina refocused me on the big picture: “That was a total mind change! By talking to you she went from thinking all abortion is okay to being against abortion. That is really awesome!” Then I realized something. If we had not gone out to WSU and asked Helen to participate in a JFA survey, her usual walk to class would have remained uninterrupted, and she would not have learned the truth about abortion that morning.

I trust God will bring a lot of fruit from this “interruption.”

A Conversation at Mankato

By Seth Wiesner, Fall 2023 Intern

In October I was doing outreach with the JFA team at Minnesota State University in Mankato. I started a conversation with a young woman named “Lisa.” She quickly became angry and began raising her voice. Suddenly she exclaimed, “I wish I had been aborted!”

Sensing that this issue was very personal to her, I took a step back from the questions I typically ask in order to challenge a person’s view. Instead I simply asked questions to try to understand her perspective. Asking questions about her beliefs not only helped me understand her position, but also demonstrated my care for her as a person. It gave me the opportunity to learn about her background, and this helped me discover the unspoken reasons that influenced her position.

Using this approach, we discussed her views on many different topics including the resurrection of Jesus. By the end of our conversation, she had softened her demeanor and her pro-choice views considerably. She accepted JFA’s “Invitation to Dialogue” brochure when I offered it to her and told me she was open to being pro-life. Thanks be to God. (See www.jfaweb.org/brochure to view and download the brochure.)

There is a great need for people to understand the truth about abortion. There are many out there, especially young adults, who haven’t been taught well and need someone to help them see how appalling abortion is. My conversation with Lisa is an example of how asking questions with an open heart and listening to understand can change the course of a conversation and lead people closer to the truth.

Welcome ETS and EPS Members!

In his paper today at the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) National Conference, Spencer Stewart discussed JFA’s model of creating a bridge from Seat Work to Feet Work as a model of pro-life education. If you are a member of ETS or the Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS), welcome. Here are links to JFA’s resources which may interest you:

One Person Can Change the World

Train One to Reach One, then Pray for Each One

In my October letter, I asked readers to make a monthly pledge, recommend JFA to a friend, and commit to pray for JFA. Read or share this important letter.

In this Impact Report, we share names and pictures of some of the people with whom our team interacted in 2023. Would you post this list somewhere in your home and pray that God will help each of these people to love the unborn, hate elective abortion, and accept God’s love?

To view more pictures and read recent stories of conversations, see our blog.

As you consider your year-end giving, would you make a special gift to JFA to help our team train many more Christians to reach the people God puts in their path? Thank you!

Pray with us for…

Because One Person Can Change the World

There are four senses in which “one person can change the world.” Ultimately, we believe Jesus Christ is the one Person who changes the world for the better. This is why we exist and why we train Christians to depend on Christ to make change. In addition, each person trained, each life saved, and each person listed below also represents one person who can change the world, by God’s power. Each person is worthy of respect and protection and investment, even if he or she may never change the world in a positive way. It is true, though, that each person JFA reaches could play a pivotal role in changing the world for the better. We thank God that we can partner with you in training Christians to reach one person at a time.

Will You Partner with Us through a Monthly Pledge?

October 2023 Letter from the Executive Director

Students at the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) recently invited Justice For All (JFA) to help them reach their campus. Madelyn Biggers, the president of the club, reflected on the event:

“Partnering with JFA was a great experience for the UNC Students for Life… The seminar was very informative and the best pro-life training I’ve ever attended… The instructors were knowledgeable and compassionate. Tabling on campus was a great learning experience, and we definitely got a lot of people talking about abortion. I would love to host JFA again in the future!”

Madelyn’s experience is just one example of how God is using the JFA team to train Christians, nurture leaders, and get people thinking clearly about abortion. Our paid internship program is another (see our fall interns, Seth and Catherine, below).

To train more people, the JFA team has been at work in nine states this fall, including three universities new to JFA*. See recent stories of changed minds and hearts below, and see pictures from recent events at www.instagram.com/picturejusticeforall.

Interns Catherine Gimino (left) and Seth Wiesner (left of center) interact with UNC students.

To continue to invest in leaders like Madelyn, Seth, and Catherine, we need your help. Each of our trainers raises personal support, and their travel, food, laptop, and other essentials are covered by our other giving designations. Each of our trainers and programs needs prayer and increased support, so now is a great time to partner with us. (Learn more about our current needs at www.jfaweb.org/invest.)

Will you make a monthly pledge of financial support or commit to increasing your support? (Set up a recurring bank transaction or credit card transaction at our Donate page. Or, call the number below.)

If you are already giving at the level you can, thank you. You are so important to our team! Would you pass this letter on to one friend with your recommendation that JFA is worthy of support?

Are you unable to give at this time? Please commit to pray for a team member or the entire team.

Use the enclosed form or go to the JFA Donate page to make a commitment to pray or give. Or, you can call our office (316.683.6426) so that our wonderful office manager, Eva Heath, can assist you.

Recent Stories of Changed Hearts and Minds

Click here to see recent outreach events at Instagram

Click here to go to Instagram to see recent outreach events.

Recent and Upcoming Outreach Events

Note: Interactive workshops preceded all events listed below.

8/28-30 * Boise State University (ID)

9/18-20 University of Northern Colorado (CO)

10/2-3 * Minnesota State Univ. Mankato (MN)

10/9-11 CSU San Marcos & Palomar College (CA)

10/18 * Christopher Newport University (VA)

10/30 University of Central Oklahoma (OK)

10/31-11/1 University of North Texas (TX)

11/13-15 University of Texas at Austin (TX)

Secular Pro-Life Resources

It’s common for pro-life and pro-choice advocates alike to assume the pro-life position is inherently religious.

For pro-life advocates, we encourage them to consider beginning conversations with secular arguments in order to not put unnecessary stumbling blocks in someone’s way. We also ask pro-life advocates to consider that even if they hold religious reasons for their position, they can also hold non-religious, publicly-accessible reasons for their position that can persuade the masses in a pluralistic society such as ours in 21st century US. See, for example, Rebecca Hotovy’s “#Mindblown” conversation with Brian. Brian began with the belief that he could not support a law against abortion because his reason for his pro-life view was religious. He believed it was wrong to put his religious view into law. Rebecca Hotovy deftly showed him that he also held his position for a reason that didn’t rely on explicitly religious support: it’s wrong and should be illegal to harm someone else.

For pro-choice advocates, we encourage them to consider the fact that there are many pro-life advocates who are agnostics or atheists. The gutsy new presidential candidate Terrisa Bukovinac is one high-profile example. The apologists at Secular Pro-Life are examples as well. Many of the folks at Libertarians for Life are also non-religious.

For pro-life and pro-choice advocates alike, we recommend the following resources from these atheistic and agnostic pro-life advocates. While we don’t agree with the atheism or agnosticism of the authors of these resources, they nonetheless contain many good arguments and truth claims, and they can help religious pro-life advocates frame their arguments in ways that are more persuasive to the average non-religious person. This is right in line with our emphasis on finding common ground when possible.

Be Relational...then Be Intellectual

In my May letter, I shared the story of my conversation with Stacey at Palomar College. It began with her saying abortion should be legal through all nine months of pregnancy because of bodily rights, and it ended with her saying, “I’ve never thought about whether the fetus is a person before. I’ll have to think about that.” This conversation illustrates a simple approach: Be relational, then be intellectual. What began as a principle we applied to the question of rape is now a principle we apply to every question related to pregnancy and abortion. You can see another great model of the basics of this approach in last month’s Impact Report by Kristina Massa entitled, “Answering the Hard Cases.”

I want to share a bit of the history of how this concept became so central to our teaching at JFA. A good starting point is a scene seven minutes into the documentary Unborn in the USA (2007), which was filmed about 19 years ago at Focus on the Family Institute (photo below). After watching that scene, a writer from Nerve Magazine (an edgy online magazine that is not recommended reading) said,

The guy is making perfect sense…He's an articulate, intelligent, calm presence. Suddenly, a chill creeps up your spine: I hope there are people on the pro-choice side who are equally perceptive and balanced.

I was the featured speaker in that scene, and here’s essentially what I was teaching: When talking about the topic of rape, we need to show sympathy for the rape victim and show emotional sensitivity to the heaviness of the topic of rape and the horror of that evil act. We need to do these things first, before making intellectual arguments. I regularly tell audiences that part of my job is to help them recover their common sense as a guide for how to respond to difficult questions like the question of abortion in the case of rape. We should be the strongest advocates for women whose basic rights have been trampled. In fact, the same concern for human rights that animates us to stand up for unborn children also animates us to stand up for all women everywhere and for their very real bodily right to be free from rape.

Focus on the Family Institute (Sept. 2004): During interactive role-play activities, Steve sometimes stood on a chair to make a point.

Being relational first and then giving intellectually credible answers to hard questions is practically wise: it works. It’s the best way to help people be open to our perspective. There’s a more fundamental reason to use this approach, though: it’s the right thing to do. Because all human beings have intrinsic value, we should stand up for them and show concern for them.

At first, we emphasized “being relational and then being intellectual” mostly on the topic of rape. Some of our trainers, notably Tammy Cook, have argued for years, though, that this approach is valuable on a much broader spectrum of questions related to pregnancy and abortion. In 2018 I put some of this approach into words in a series called “It’s Her Body.” I made the case that the relational concerns that are on the minds of people discussing the question of rape are just as present when a woman’s body is mentioned. I pointed out that many pro-choice advocates perceive or feel our advocacy against abortion to be a violation of a woman's body. If they hear our advocacy this way, the fear and horror they feel for other violations of a woman’s body will obstruct hearing our case for the unborn’s value.

To meet this challenge, I claimed that for any bodily rights argument, we should also use the approach of “be relational and then be intellectual.” First, point out that women have real bodily rights, generally speaking, and those rights have been trampled throughout history up to the present day in horrific acts including rape, domestic violence, and slavery. Then clarify how far those bodily rights extend and how it changes things when we consider that since those bodily rights are fundamental, they must have begun when the human being began, at fertilization. If the unborn also has bodily rights, their bodily rights should be respected as well. Be relational, then be intellectual.

The more we as a community have reflected on these things, we’ve realized that this is a good practice to follow with every pro-choice argument. Show sensitivity to the emotional heaviness caused by the suffering in these circumstances, then continue in that relational sensitivity as you offer intellectual clarifications.

Here’s an example: If someone says, “some women are too poor,” I begin with relational and emotional sensitivity: “That’s a good point. Some women are very poor, and I can’t fully understand what it’s like to be poor and pregnant. I’m glad you’ve brought this up, and I don’t have a simple answer.” When it seems helpful, I can then clarify that because poverty isn’t a good justification for killing a toddler whose mom is poor, this justification for abortion only works if something else is also true, that the unborn is not a human being. This clarifies that we all need to focus on this central question. We agree poverty is incredibly difficult, and we agree we need to care for poor women. What constitutes good “care” will depend on our answer to the question, “How many people are in the room?” If there’s only one person present when a woman is pregnant, and abortion kills no one, then abortion should be legal. But if abortion kills a real human being, it would be odd to offer abortion as a solution to poverty. Our approach is the same for most other justifications for abortion, including “the child will suffer,” “a woman’s life will be overturned by caring for a child,” and “the world is overpopulated such that people can’t get enough to eat.” We show concern for the suffering involved (“be relational”) and then clarify the truth that these situations don’t justify killing human beings, including the unborn (be intellectual).

Oct. 2024 Update: Note that this letter expands on the second of a series of three letters Steve wrote from February 2023 until March 2024 - letters focused on conversations skills we teach volunteers that help them get started having conversations and encourage them to stay active. Here are links to the series, including this letter, so you can see how it fits in the flow of thought:

  1. “Be a Playmaker” (Feb. 2023): on the importance of setting the right expectations for results and seeing your advocacy as one piece of a bigger puzzle

  2. “Thinking about the Unborn Child for the First Time” (May 2023): on being relational then intellectual

  3. “Only Two Questions?” (March 2024): on the two clarification questions that can help you make an impact in any conversation