Opinion

Tactically responding to a fallacious pro-choice argument

This is a clip from an episode of Life Report called “Recognizing and Defeating Logical Fallacies.” In this clip, I asked Trent Horn about tactically responding to fallacious pro-choice arguments. Click here to watch the full interview.

If you don’t want to watch the 2-minute video, you can read the full transcript below.

Josh Brahm: OK, let me ask you a more tactical question. Let’s say you’re in a dialogue with a pro-choice person, and they are committing a logical fallacy. And let’s say this person’s not a philosophy major. If you’re just talking to someone, just a layperson who’s pro-choice, it seems like it’s probably not going to be the most effective to say, “Oh, well you just committed the appeal to pity.” You know, that’s probably not going to be very helpful. So what would be a more gracious and tactical way to help show someone that their entire argument is grounded in a logical fallacy?

Trent Horn: Yeah, and I would actually encourage your listeners to not say, “Oh, you committed this fallacy” because it’s terribly presumptuous and arrogant and most people start to really, don’t appreciate talking to someone that just points out every little fallacy they’re making. But, rather, what you should do is follow Greg Koukl’s tactics and JFA training and ask, “Well, why do you think that? Why do you think abortion should be legal?” And then continue to ask follow-up questions. “Why should abortion be legal?” “Well, ’cause pro-lifers are just trying to take away women’s rights. They don’t care about women. They wouldn’t even adopt children.” And then you can establish the point of the ad hominem by asking a question instead. You might ask, “Well, could a person be a bad person but still be right?” See, you’re making the point of the ad hominem by asking a question to illuminate it for someone. So the more you listen and ask for things to get justification for reasoning, you don’t have to point out the fallacies. The person sees there’s something wrong with their argument.

Life Report trains pro-life people to communicate their views more effectively. Through round-table discussions and interviews with the top experts on the subject, Life Report provides real-world answers to the toughest questions regarding abortion in the 21st century. Follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

Special thanks to Nate Amandsun for the transcription.

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  • peach

    Send this to Calvin.

    • Richard

      You owe me a new keyboard…

  • Richard

    It’s actually interesting to pursue the consequences of the premise “Life begins at conception” and by “Life” I mean “full-rights, human life”. Clearly, abortion would become murder, but there are other consequences unrelated to abortion. For example, while we currently celebrate the anniversary of our birth, should we also, perhaps with even more enthusiasm, celebrate the anniversary of our conception? How would we determine the exact date on which we “came into existence”? Should the government begin requiring men to file “certificates of successful ejaculation” when said ejaculate may have come in contact with an egg? Should we install cameras in women’s ovaries to capture the event? If a woman misses her period, can she assume that she can start using the carpool lane? Can I claim my fetus (the new term for pre-birth humans) on my income taxes as a dependent? Will the dates on which people achieve certain rights (e.g. to vote) be based on conception or birth? Will miscarriages be determined to be suicides or murder? Can the government seize my unborn child if it is determined that I am not adequately providing for her well-being?

    • Violet Black

      I’m afraid I’m not sure what you are getting at. But now I will try to answer everything literally because that’s just how my bizarre little mind works. I hope you don’t mind. ^_^;
      -I would celebrate the anniversary of my conception if I knew when it was, but I don’t care a great deal which day I’m celebrating as long as I get to celebrate something. I guess when you think about it, it is pretty odd that we celebrate only the day we got out of our mothers’ bodies and met everyone face to face. It was probably a pretty unpleasant day for most of us at the time, especially those born in facilities prone to very thorough health exams!
      -I don’t know why people talk so much about the raw materials used to conceive a child; I don’t like hearing about other people’s fluids unless I’m already in “that kind of” relationship with the originator of the fluids. But now that you mention it, it would be AWESOME to have a way to keep track of possible paternity from the very beginning. Poor Jerry Springer would be out of a job. Of course keeping track of sex acts themselves would be a major burden to committed, affectionate couples who have the least to worry about if they produce a child; while folks like pickup artists and seeeeeecret lovers would become experts at circumventing the requirements.
      -I’m sure some women would love to videotape the conception of their children. I never understood the thrill of generating a new person myself, but some parents get really into it. You might have a winning product on your hands. (Also, I’m pretty sure conception happens closer to the fallopian tubes. An ovarian camera might miss the event and a uterine camera might crowd the baby.)
      -I must confess I knew little about carpool lanes until you asked, and even now I would still need to know more to figure out when a mother-and-child would qualify. Are you sure it isn’t affected by how many seats are occupied?
      -I’m a big supporter of family-wide financial responsibility throughout all stages of life. I would much rather have a father claim a tax deduction on his child early in gestation than skip town to pollenate a new harem. That being said, it should probably be proportionate with regard to the expenses caused by the child’s gestation.
      -The dates of various rights (voting, driving, etc.) are already approximated based on how mature the government thinks we are at certain points relative to birth. That currently gives those born prematurely a slight advantage in reaching the milestones, but it doesn’t seem to cause too many problems. We all mature at different rates in practice anyway. If, after the hypothetical cultural shift in question, the government decided to set the voting age at “eighteen years and nine months after conception”…would anyone mind?
      -Pretty much everyone agrees that miscarriages are usually accidents, “natural causes” as you would call it in an adult or SIDS in an infant. (Not that I’d dissuade a bereaved mother from trying to learn and treat the medical causes of her loss, especially if she intends to try again…) I’ve heard of five-year-olds attempting suicide in extreme circumstances (which I won’t detail so as not to ruin your day), but it would really shock me if someone younger deliberately tried to end their own lives. I still hope that people who try to kill kids by beating their girlfriends’ abdomens are charged with murder.
      -There is a such thing as fetal abuse, although I’m not sure what it entails. Mainly I’ve heard of it in the context of my mother complaining about all the crazy tests she had to put me through in utero out of fear of being charged with it. (She’s afraid all the sonograms ruined my brain. I wish she wouldn’t talk like that in front of me.) Anyway, we’ve seen working at a drug counseling center that the foster care system has a lot of flaws, so I’d hesitate to recommend it as a blanket solution to anything. All I can say is that if a kid is in trouble, I hope some trustworthy agency can and will fix it. If it’s a financial problem, I hope someone would help them improve their conditions. (That’s a noble use of taxes in my opinion.) If the material problems stem from mental or behavioral problems, I hope there is therapy that can improve things without unnecessarily screwing up the family. (And I do kind of hope, deep down inside, that if a family really wants their child out of their lives, the government will someday be able to provide ways to do that at any point between conception and adulthood WITHOUT putting that child at risk of physical or mental harm. “Artificial uteri capable of resuming an interrupted pregnancy” and “Vastly improved screening of potential surrogate caretakers” are both on my to-fund-if-I-ever-find-buried-treasure list, though I’d need a medical ethics professional to evaluate all the implications of the former.)

      Sorry if my rambling is annoying. You looked like you were having fun, so I thought it might be okay to join in. Hope I didn’t misjudge the situation!

      • Richard

        Wow. I like it.

        “I don’t know why people talk so much about the raw materials used to conceive a child.” In some ways, we were better off believing that life began at some indeterminate point prior to birth, before Science pulled back the curtain and showed us the man behind the curtain that was the Great and Powerful Oz.

        Regarding cameras, my point was that I don’t really want the government tracking the creation of human life inside my body, which is what would end up happening if zygotes were granted full human rights. If someone wants to video-record “life being created”, I’m all for it, but frankly I think the government should keep its distance until birth.

        “I never understood the thrill of generating a new person myself, but some parents get really into it”. I guess it’s like caviar–I’m assuming you’re referring to procreation, and not sex, in which case I’d say you’re probably doing it wrong.

        • Guest

          Three things:

          1. Legally protecting the rights of all humans wouldn’t change your gender, which is male judging by your name. No human life is likely to be created in your body.

          2. Placing cameras in the fallopian tubes would be very expensive, dangerous, impractical, and probably impossible.

          3. You don’t live in a police state, which means that it would be illegal and wrong to place cameras inside someone’s body (without reasonable suspicion that a crime has taken place). The same goes for police searching someone’s house. These facts don’t prove that murder should be legal in either of these two places.