Guest post by Ben Hutchinson.
Abortion is one of the most controversial and, like it or not, awkward topics to discuss. So awkward in fact, that most of the time it is not discussed at all, except in heated political settings where various insults can be thrown around with abandon — this book seeks to change that approach, at least from the pro-life side of things.
Trent Horn is a staff apologist for Catholic Answers, and anyone who has heard him debate or answer questions in that role will recognize his gentle and gracious approach coming through this book. Most jarring is Trent’s first ‘rule’ for pro-lifers discussing abortion, which is “Don’t be weird”.
Anyone who has been involved in an abortion discussion (or has witnessed one) will recognize that it won’t be long before various terrible situations are leveled at the defenders of life — rape, incest, terrible disablement, lives of pain and poverty.
From Trent’s perspective, it would be weird to either ignore such claims or to somehow answer as though they don’t matter — to any normal person, such situations evoke, at a minimum, sympathy, so it is entirely appropriate for the pro-life person to show the same emotions.
Such an approach is actually quite freeing — you aren’t constantly concerned about ceding ground on fairly uncontroversial points (i.e. that rape is bad) because you will know a rebuttal that accepts the premise, but still argues against the conclusion.
The book is really about how to have a productive conversation on abortion, and Trent spends a fair amount of time demonstrating how to not talk past each other, as well as dealing with specific categories of pro-choice people (“bodily autonomy types”, the “concerned”, the “warriors” etc).
Trent’s hypothesis is that the heart of the matter is the answer to the question “what are the unborn?”, and that everything flows from that. Too often we talk about specific situations — the ubiquitous “but what about [insert situation here]”. Those are ultimately surface-level issues, and to really have a discussion, we need to strip things back to their most basic and find common ground.
Whilst Trent is a Catholic, and the book does quote many Catholic luminaries, the book is not just for Catholics. Non-Catholics will get much out of the book as the ideas of graciousness and the types of pro-choice people one meets are the same, regardless of the religion (or lack thereof) of the pro-life proponent. Even in areas where a non-Catholic may disagree with Trent’s position, it is useful to understand where Catholics are coming from, being as large a part of the pro-life movement as they are.
There is one area in which I can think of that the book doesn’t particularly assist — in this relativist age in which we are living in, I find it increasingly common that people respond with “I don’t know” to some basic questions — “what is life; “when does life begin”; “can we agree on [insert whatever topic here]”. It strikes me that there may just not be any good strategies with people who take such a line — perhaps there needs to be a modicum of self-awareness and some sort of good faith for any discussion to take place, and it seems to me that such things are increasingly in short supply in the modern age.
Nevertheless, the book is one of the better ones out there on this topic, and as someone who discusses the issue on social media, I have found the responses to my points to generally be far more fruitful since reading this book. Whilst it helps you to present compelling arguments for the pro-life position, I think the real benefit in this book is allowing the pro-life proponent to listen to the concerns of their interlocutors, without compromising on pro-life beliefs and positions.
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Ben Hutchinson is a father of two, living in Brisbane, Australia.
Photo: Kelly Sikkema, Unsplash / PD-US
