Susanna is pictured above in conversation at the University of Oklahoma (OU)
Susanna Dirks (Buckley) is JFA’s featured team member on Instagram today.
Click here to listen to Susanna share stories from outreach.
JFA Intern Rebekah Dyer wrote a timely and timeless piece at Human Defense Initiative: “A Different Kind of Conversation.” It’s a much-needed, short read, especially given the unrest and tension in the culture right now.
When asked about her views on abortion, this student shares mixed feelings.
Do you have a clear view on abortion, or are you not totally sure what to think?
What factors contribute to your certainty or uncertainty?
I recently came across this short, intriguing story from John Ensor at PassionLife: “Lunch with an Abortion Doctor.” It raises some interesting questions that could be useful for conversations between pro-choice and pro-life friends (see below). Here’s the story:
Photo by Igor Starkov on Unsplash
(Click on the image above to read “Lunch with an Abortion Doctor” by John Ensor.)
In Oradea, Romania, Mihaela and Gabby Visan run a pregnancy help center inside a women’s hospital.
Their effectiveness is severely limited by one fact: women must pay for their abortion before they can talk to anyone, committing them to abortion, even if they arrive ambivalent. So the counseling service is effectively cut out of the patient flow.
To address this, we had lunch with the main abortion doctor at the hospital. His girlfriend also joined us.
He sat down and started talking…
What should informed consent look like for those considering abortion?
Do you think it’s a good thing for pregnant mothers to see accurate imagery of the unborn (e.g. an ultrasound, in-utero footage such as content available at EHD.org, or imagery of the unborn after abortion) before making an abortion decision? Why or why not?
Join us today for “Taking Abortion from Debate to Dialogue,” a JFA Online Workshop with Interactive Activities. Here’s the workshop info:
Rebecca Hotovy talks with a student at a JFA outreach event at Arizona State University.
2:00 - 5:00 PM (Central Time)
Register here for webinar materials and login information. - If you are registering more than one person in your household, please just register once and add the names of all participants in the Comments area.
Presenters: Steve Wagner, Susanna Dirks, Jon Wagner, Mary St. Hilaire
Click here for more information about the “Taking Abortion from Debate to Dialogue” Online Workshop.
A genetic abnormality detected (or presumed to exist) through prenatal genetic testing is a common reason for considering abortion. What do you think about abortion in this case?
Many people say that choosing abortion is morally equivalent to withdrawing life support - simply choosing to “not help” the unborn. Helping may be admirable, they say, but to “not help” is not the same as killing. It is as reasonable as declining to donate your blood or organs to someone in critical need.
In the ERI video below, Timothy Brahm makes a 12-minute case that this neutral “not help” option does not exist with pregnancy as it does with blood and organ donation scenarios.
Do you think that choosing abortion is a neutral choice, simply declining to support the unborn with your body? What do you think of Tim’s response to this view?
“These numbers were debunked in 1969 — 50 years ago — by a statistician celebrated by Planned Parenthood. There’s no reason to use them today.”
The claim that “thousands of women died every year” from illegal, botched abortions prior to Roe v. Wade is widely repeated by such prominent voices as the Los Angeles Times’ executive editor Norman Pearlstine in this recent op ed and even by the President of Planned Parenthood. But is it true?
Thanks to the fact checkers at the Washington Post, we now have a clear answer.
This month, JFA held a two-day outreach event (April 8-9) at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. The student newspaper, The UNC Mirror, covered the event.
Click here to read the article, including an interview with JFA Trainer Grace Fontenot.
Click above to read the full interview and coverage of JFA’s recent outreach at University of Northern Colorado in The UNC Mirror.
Back in August 2017, my Facebook newsfeed was peppered throughout with mocking criticisms of Elizabeth (Liz) Harman's appearance on Philosophy Time, a series of philosophy-themed interviews featuring actor James Franco and his co-host Eliot Michaelson (see video embedded in this post). Harman's ideas came under such scrutiny partly because of her position at Princeton University as the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values. I'll admit, after viewing her interview, I was also unimpressed and mystified that someone so distinguished could represent what seemed to me to be to be a totally incoherent position.
Recently, I read a response written by Sherif Girgis, a graduate of Yale Law School and PhD candidate in Philosophy at Princeton. Girgis disagrees with Harman's argument, which makes the title of his article all the more intriguing: "In Defense of Elizabeth Harman: Taking Pro-Choice Philosophers Seriously." As a former student of Harman's during his undergraduate years at Princeton, Girgis starts his article with a stinging critique, not for Harman, but for the pro-life advocates who have ridiculed her and her arguments since the release of the video on July 25th.
Reading Girgis' article was a humbling, poignant reminder to me of the importance of listening to understand, even when the ideas a person represents seem completely ridiculous. All of us, pro-life and pro-choice alike, can learn from this. I think we can also learn from Girgis's excellent critique of Harman's position - a position which he represents much more fairly than I've yet seen it represented from any other pro-life advocate since the release of Harman's Philosophy Time interview.
Have you felt misrepresented in a discussion of abortion? Have you misrepresented someone else's view in pursuit of refuting it?
Do you agree with the point of this post that no matter what our view on abortion is, we need more "listening to understand" in discussions about abortion?
Impact Report, March 2018
By Joanna Bai, Training Specialist
Last October, I received an email from a college student named Ann:
...I chose the topic of abortion in Japan for my senior thesis and plan to research the various views on the topic among students and faculty at my school. I then hope to...encourage discussion among students.
“From conversations with a few friends I was surprised at the number of people who accept abortion as an option, especially during the early stages. If I remember correctly, I heard you were a part of the pro-life club at Wheaton. I realize it will be a bit different here, but I am curious...what approaches you took in your activities on campus.”
Ann (left), pictured along with her brothers, Luke and Benjamin
Ann and I grew up attending church together in Santa Margarita, a rural town near the Central Coast of California. I graduated from Wheaton College, a Christian college in Illinois, and she is currently finishing her senior year at Tokyo Christian University in Japan. As a high school student in 2014, Ann had attended a short JFA workshop that I gave at our home church. Following that workshop, she drove over two hours to attend a full-length JFA training seminar and a JFA outreach event which had been arranged through Right to Life of Central California. Years went by before I heard much more from Ann. Then I received her email.
It was true that I had led the Wheaton College pro-life club during the 2010-11 school year. I emphasized to Ann how much I wish, in retrospect, that I had had more courage to actively create outreach opportunities to engage fellow students on my campus. It’s often assumed at a Christian school that most people basically agree about abortion. Like Ann, however, when I did have interactions with Christian friends, I found a diversity of views. Many of my Christian peers did not know when to mark the beginning of human life, were comfortable with first-trimester abortion, supported abortion in the case of rape, or did not think their private views on abortion had a place in public policy. While at Wheaton, I had focused on speaking events and small group dialogue practice among club members, but never organized any outreach events to engage people in the broader community about their views.
Ann decided to learn from my omission and engaged her campus in dialogue.
Not only did Ann survey a total of 99 students, faculty, and staff members (more than one-third of Tokyo Christian University) about their specific views on abortion, she also researched the history of abortion in Japan, wrote a research paper, gave a speech on the topic to her speech class, and followed up with 23 of the people she had surveyed. She also organized a JFA workshop for her campus community, and she asked me to lead the workshop via video conference. She even planned a JFA-style outreach event on her campus for the day following the workshop. In a country where abortion is generally accepted and rarely discussed openly, Ann was using the JFA training she had received years before to spark much-needed conversation among Christians who can make a difference.
JFA trainer Joanna Bai (left, on screen) led the JFA workshop at Tokyo Christian University for 19 participants (not all in view).
I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with Ann throughout this process. She asked me for feedback as she prepared and planned, and she also asked me for prayer along the way. Her passion to reach her Christian peers re-ignited the similar passion I felt in college, and it was an honor to support her by leading the workshop event for her.
The three-hour workshop we planned together took place last month. It was translated by a professor on campus because many attendees were not fluent in English. A total of 19 students, faculty, and staff members attended, hailing from Japan, America, Nepal, the Philippines, Indonesia, Uganda, and Canada. I first shared about the inhumanity of abortion, and, with a warning, showed images of the results of abortion. I emphasized the need to share the graphic truth about abortion because I knew that many in Japan have probably never seen graphic abortion images before; additionally, because Ann had interviewed a large portion of her community, I knew that many of the participants were likely on the fence about abortion in certain cases. Because several of those interviewed had mentioned rape as a case in which abortion may be acceptable, I also took time later in the workshop to address that circumstance in particular. Participants were even able to go through practice dialogue activities in pairs, thanks to the efforts of several people Ann had recruited for translation. Finally, I ended the workshop by emphasizing our Christian duty to “rescue those who are being taken away to death,” rather than remaining silent in the face of such injustice (Proverbs 24:11-12).
I was encouraged by the participants’ interest in the topic. One professor wrote on her comment card:
“This was my first time attending a training that addresses abortion in particular, so it was a good opportunity. Humans developing from the inside, unlike the parts of a car [being put together piece by piece from the outside]. I thought this is very important in thinking about life.” (See our “Extending Your Learning - Biology” page for more on this topic.)
Ann wrote to the JFA team to tell us about the outreach event she had held the day after the workshop. None of the participants ended up joining Ann for the outreach, but Ann decided to be an active example to her peers anyway. She started conversations with fellow students by herself, alongside her handmade JFA-style display showing images of the unborn at different stages before and after abortion. One of her conversations was with a student who had participated in the workshop. He said that during his time in America, he had heard politicians promoting the pro-choice position. Then he said, “Before the training yesterday I had always thought pro-choice was a good thing.” The workshop had opened his eyes to look past pro-choice rhetoric and take a hard look at the inhumanity of abortion. (Ann had another fascinating interaction about the word “human” in Japanese. Read about it in the blog post “Are We Talking about the Same Thing?”)
I was amazed at what Ann was able to accomplish through her project. Ann’s willingness to go to such lengths to raise the topic of abortion with her peers in Japan reminded me that every event we put on here in the States – every presentation, workshop, seminar, and outreach event – has the potential to spark an interest in someone like Ann, someone who can take that passion with her to places where JFA will never step foot.
This is how JFA’s work is designed. Our team is not here to take on the huge task of changing public opinion on our own. We are here to equip Ann, and to equip you, to become a different kind of advocate, having a different kind of conversation, with people we will never meet. Only together, and only with God’s help, can we create a different kind of world for the smallest humans among us.
Ann’s experience with her Christian peers was similar to mine, and, we think, similar to the state of affairs in many Christian colleges, churches, schools, and ministries. When we ask people within our Christian communities specific questions about what they believe on abortion, we find that they often hold pro-choice views. We are here to equip you, like Ann, to reach your community. You don’t necessarily need to go to a secular campus or have many non-Christian friends in order to make a difference. If you are wondering with whom you could possibly create a conversation about abortion, I have one simple suggestion: perhaps your church pew is the best place to start.
The article linked below was written by our friend Timothy Brahm, the Director of Training at Equal Rights Institute. (Previously, Timothy served as a Training Specialist at JFA.) He shares an interesting strategy for avoiding common, but unhelpful tangents in conversations about abortion. It's a short read that explains this main point: Surprisingly, it's sometimes more helpful to the skeptic to not answer his or her hypothetical questions, but rather to ask what he or she actually believes.
The two videos below document the birth stories of Baby Eleanor and Baby Logan. Both Eleanor and Logan were diagnosed with lethal fetal anomalies, and were assumed to be "not compatible with life" after birth. Instead of turning to abortion, their families received support from the perinatal hospice team at Choices Medical Clinic (Wichita, KS), and were empowered to embrace whatever time they could have with their babies. Witness their incredible stories for yourself, in the videos below.
"Ten Easy Ways to Start Meaningful Dialogue," an article by Steve Wagner (JFA's Executive Director), was featured in a a recent blog post by Amy K. Hall for Stand to Reason. You can read it by clicking on the image nearby.
Are you looking for a way to put these principles into practice? We invite you to participate in the JFA training program, which includes a university campus outreach experience.
Read the Article
Read Steve's Book
Invite Steve to Speak
Learn about Upcoming JFA Events
Stephanie Gray refers to a picture of an embryo at seven weeks during her presentation at Google headquarters.
It's nearly impossible to avoid the question of "when life begins" when talking to people about abortion. In a presentation at Google headquarters, Stephanie Gray shares questions she uses in her conversations on the subject (11:04 - 13:30). See the clip below. After watching, we suggest answering the following questions, preferably in dialogue with someone else:
"Biologically speaking, when do you think a living human organism begins to exist?"
"Do you believe it is possible for pro-choice and pro-life advocates to agree on a clear answer to this question?"
"How do you integrate the biology of when humans begin with your view on abortion, if at all?"
(You can also respond using the comments section below or using the version of this post at our @7conversations Twitter feed.)
What is the unborn? (scientific opinions and stunning visuals)
