Gruesome...But Justifiable?

Episode 89: Gruesome...But Justifiable?

Maggie: Have you ever met someone who agrees abortion is gruesome but also thinks abortion is okay? Let's talk about how we can respond. Come debrief with us.

 Hey, my name is Maggie and I'm here with Ethan and Seth, and we are debriefing Pro Life Outreach. Seth, do you have an outreach highlight? 

Seth: I do. Alright, so this is from Otterbein, a favorite campus of ours. And this is an interesting dialogue where I was talking to a guy, and he was kind of one of those hecklers.

You might, you know, you know the guys, right? And so he was not listening to me, and I would say to him, he'd say, I'm sorry, I can't hear you. What are you saying? I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Oh my dear, that's so annoying. I know, right? But I was telling him, like, you know, you don't, you're acting this way today.

You don't always act this way. Our side is always ready to welcome you. , I think I was asking like, you know, you're a person because God made you in his image and you matter and all that stuff. And he said, I don't understand you. What? I said, well, God made you, he cares for you. And he said, well, good for him.

Then he said, I'm sorry, actually good for her. I said, wait, what? And he said, well, God is gender neutral, which is kind of a funny progression. Like God is a he, God is a she, then God is gender neutral. And I asked him, well, why do you say that? He's like, well, the Bible never says that God is a he. And I was like, well, okay, the Bible, God is revealed as the father, like that seems to imply gender, right?

And so it was kind of an interesting little, , low light, maybe not a highlight, but low light from outreach. Have you guys heard that before?

Ethan: , I've heard God the Father not being a man before. Right, like from Christians, like he's not a human being? Uh, Well, yeah, there was actually a Christian movie, I think, where God the Father was portrayed as like a woman.

Seth: Should I reveal that, or are we putting that in the show notes, or is that like off topic? I don't know. I've never seen it. DM us if you want to know what movie it is, we'll tell you. It was The Shack, right? Okay, well, on that note. Is it okay to say in here? 

Maggie: Yes. And on that note, we'll move on to the clip . Uh, well, this was actually at a college and it's Isaac's clip and yeah, we can listen to it now. 

Isaac: just to clarify, ma'am, you do think it's sad, you do think it's gruesome, but you're still collecting signatures to support that. 

Woman: It's a gruesome photo, absolutely. Right. You're only showing one aspect of the reason people, uh, one aspect of abortion. 

Isaac: Well, there's no, there's no reasons displayed in these photos, just the product of, Of abortion.

The baby. 

Seth: Okay, where is this from, Maggie? 

Maggie: Cuyahoga. Is that how you say that? 

Seth: Okay, yeah, yeah. So, clearly, there were people on campus getting signatures for this radical pro abortion petition. I think our listeners are familiar with it, but this would go in the ballot this fall in Ohio, make abortion legal through all nine months in Ohio, and much more.

Mm hmm. Yeah. Isaac was talking to people who were considering signing, or talking to the community. Person collecting signatures. 

Maggie: No, he was actually just doing outreach there. Okay, regular outreach. Yeah, she came up to him one of the first things she said was that those are gruesome pictures and then She was saying stuff about how...

Oh, and then she was asking about his GoPro, and he was explaining why we use GoPros, like, because people can be violent and we just need proof, and stuff like that. And, and she started saying, , oh, I haven't seen people being violent towards pro lifers, but I have seen people being violent towards pro choicers. And she started explaining... That when she goes out and collects signatures, she didn't even like say that she's a signature collector, she just said, we.

Seth: So she wasn't collecting at that moment? No. Oh, okay. 

Maggie: She was just walking up. I don't know if she was a teacher or what. 

Seth: She said she faces violence while collecting signatures. 

Maggie: Yeah, and she starts saying that. That pro lifers are verbally abusive, like calling signature collectors or those who would sign baby killers, , And so I think If this were some 

verbal abuse, tearing someone's body limb from limb. 

Seth: Yeah. I'm not saying we justify the verbal abuse, but 

Maggie: Yeah. Yeah, and so, I mean That's kind of similar to what Isaac said, like, well, like, we should not... We're not okay with anyone being mean, but we should call it what it is. Abortion is baby killing. We should be honest about that. He said we should call sin what it is.

So, anyway, yeah, she was a signature collector, and what's so interesting is she was calling these pictures gruesome. But still saying it's okay. Yeah. 

Yeah, I 

Seth: loved Isaac's, it wasn't exactly on this point, but he was explaining the simplicity of our signs. I think it's really important. And I'm sure most of our listeners know what Created Equal outreach looks like, right?

But our signs don't have a lot of words on them. There is a description, , abortion, the bottom says age of the baby, but it doesn't say this is wrong. It doesn't say why the mom got this. The reasons aren't for that are on there. You're just seeing abortion. So abortion itself is the gruesome act. I like that simplicity.

I think that's really important for getting people the reason she's upset about it's not because of what we're saying because of what she's seeing she's seeing abortion. 

Maggie: Yeah, and it's at these times that I just want to plead with people like please look at the victim look at Yeah, these pictures, please be heartbroken for him or her. but instead so many people look at the pictures and instead disagree with us for even showing them. 

Seth: Isn't that so interesting? Like, so a lot of people, I think even following this amendment, Ohio and you know, we've been talking about it's on our website, createdequal.org/ohio. You can get involved and so on and so forth, but you imagine, okay, everyone out there fighting for this must be ardently pro abortion and love abortion.

And a lot of them do, right? We do not discount that, but here's someone who's. Actively working for the amendment to make it legal to kill babies who is repulsed by abortion doesn't that says something right like there's a lot of things But I mean, that's I think really important know that is what's the reality.

Maggie: Mm hmm. she starts to say that these pictures we show only show one reason then she starts over and And she's like, they only show one aspect of abortion. , then Isaac still replied to what she was starting to say that, of course our pictures don't show any of the reasons. We agree women get abortions for all kinds of reasons.

But none of those reasons justified because every abortion kills a child. , every successful abortion, baby killing is part of that intrinsically or else it wouldn't be an abortion. 

Seth: Yeah, I think the words again are so instructive for that. She led in with said, it's gruesome, but also sad. There are a lot of things that are gruesome.

They're not sad, right? And people on campus tell me this a lot that when I say like. You know, it's, it's, it's gross. Abortion is gross. Abortion is disgusting. They'll say, yes, but open heart surgery is disgusting. And that's really true. I mean, I get really squeamish when I see any blood at all. But you're never sad when you see open heart surgery, right?

That emotion is instructive. Why do you feel sad when you see abortion because it's killing someone? A lot of things are gross, but not bad or, , , not shameful. Abortion is shameful. It's sad. Those emotions mean something. So I think her own words are tipping us off to what is really at play here, and that is a... an immoral act.

Maggie: Yeah, I think no matter the, the quote unquote other aspects of abortion, such as what, what quote unquote good it might do for the mother, it's never justified, like I said, because of that, that main aspect that it kills a human child. I think of other examples where you could think of. Good Not really good, but like some kind of profit this actually relates a lot to it an episode that we did recently I'll put that in the show notes to but 

Seth: profit.

I was thinking like this somebody speaks a prophet. I got you. Okay making profit off some 

Maggie: Yeah, but I think of other examples of great injustices And, like, the idea of justifying them for the profit that came from them is just horrendous. Like, I think of slavery as treating human beings like property was just one aspect of abortion.

Or, sorry, of slavery. It had benefits like, uh, cheap products and ease of life for the slave owners. Like, it's just, like, horrible even thinking like that, isn't it? And the Holocaust. Discriminate, discriminating against Jews for their ethnicity was just one aspect of the Holocaust. Yeah. But benefits included, I have to be honest, I struggle to think of any quote unquote benefits for this, but benefits included large amounts of people being united in one mission, um, Hitler getting what he wanted, uh, etc.

Sex trafficking, forcing women to do sex work against their will and objectifying their bodies is just one aspect of sex trafficking. Benefits are the pleasure that men might get from it or the money for those involved. School shootings, killing a bunch of kids is just one aspect of school shootings.

Benefits might include comforting the shooter who might, who's probably going through a really hard time, , or getting to use a gun in a not self controlled way. I know, like, Just the that urge to cause destruction is something that a lot of kids have and then usually grow out of it or or gain self control which is a good thing, but I just think of all these examples like this lady said that our pictures they only show one aspect of abortion Yeah, why does that matter like we're showing what abortion does that a child is brutally murdered you can't act like it'll ever be justified just because we only show the aspect of abortion that shows that it kills a human being. 

Ethan: yeah, our signs don't show kind of what the woman started to say, the reasons for why women get an abortion, but the reasons why you do something don't change the morality of what you're doing.

Well, all the things you just listed, Maggie, we could come up with a hundred more reasons, positive reasons for those items for, you know, why it's, uh, why it was beneficial. Hitler to massacre six million Jews why it's beneficial for school shooters to be able to unleash their rage, in that horrific and destructive manner, but the whole point is that no matter how many reasons or supposed benefits or profit that comes from committing these vile deeds, they will always be vile deeds that are despicably wicked and nothing we can do can ever legitimize those.

Seth: yeah, I guess the problem, I think, I think you're exactly right, Ethan, but I think that. That is not a moral calculation that people make today, right? I think that... Their concern is that we're leaving out the mother and so we're not talking about why she's doing this and why she's doing it is Going to justify the action or not.

Right? Right. , so we recognize that morality does involve motive, um, intent, right? So like me borrowing your pen, me stealing your pen may look the same, but my motive and purpose Distinguishes it but with a woman or when a mom chooses to pay someone to kill her child The action she's choosing is having her child killed.

Her motives play into it, but when she pays money to this person, she's paying them to do the action of killing a child. And so, her motives may range from some being concerned for the baby, like not wanting the baby to be part of this world, to concerns for herself, like I want to stay in school, but regardless those concerns don't change the fact she's choosing to have someone kill.

That's her choice involved. And we said it's always wrong. Our culture is not willing to call things =always wrong today, right? That's the problem. We're coming at it from different moral paradigms. And so I think that, I understand her point here, but it's just not gonna change. You're exactly right. What Ethan says is right.

It's just not gonna change. We could list every reason for abortion on all of our signs. It doesn't change the rightness or wrongness of killing the baby, of purposefully killing the baby. 

Ethan: And I think once, once we have this conversation about You know, it being wrong to murder babies. I am all for understanding why people want to do something, because once you understand why someone wants something, you can help them effectively.

But we all need to acknowledge that it is not helping the woman to allow her to pay someone to kill her child. That's just not something we should enable her in.

Seth: You're exactly right. I think that we are not so simple minded as to reject the fact there are complexities here, right? Who's gonna pay for the baby?

Who's gonna raise the child? Where will we live? All these big questions. The things that Maggie listed are complexities. There's only one moral question to human slavery, to sex trafficking, to human abortion, elective abortion. There's one relevant question. That is, are we purposefully harming or killing an innocent human?

The other complexes are Interesting and important for the people involved, but they're irrelevant to the moral matter. And that's why it doesn't get through all the confusion of the moral issue and the surrounding complexities. Not the same thing. 

Maggie: Yeah, because these are things that are evil at their core, so it doesn't matter what.

What context lies around them? 

Seth: Because they're necessary evils, right? So war is like a conditional evil. War can be good or bad depending upon why we're going to war. Not the same with murder, with rape, with elective abortion. These are necessary, necessarily evils. They're not necessary, in the sense that we need them.

They're necessarily evil. They are always evil in any context.

Maggie: So I honestly love that she used the word gruesome. Yeah. For these pictures. I just wish that she realized it's not just the pictures. It's... The actual abortions that are being photographed. Those are the evil things. 

Ethan: Well, I guess I have a question for you Maggie When you're having conversations with people like this who acknowledge that the pictures are gruesome and that they are sad But still think that abortion is okay.

How do you go about? Talking to someone like that because it almost seems to me like there's a bit of it There's a disconnect there in their thinking and I don't know that I know the best way to try and help them Fix that disconnect or how to approach that conversation with them. How would you do that?

Maggie: Yeah. Well, honestly, I Some of my answer to this comes from what I've learned from Seth, but I would ask them Why is it gruesome, or, or maybe if it makes them feel sad at all, why do you think it makes you feel sad? Because, like you said, Seth, it's different than just a heart surgery. , there is an actual reason that it makes us feel sad.

In a heart surgery, someone's being healed. In an abortion, someone's being killed. So there's a significant difference there. , 

Seth: that's really good, Maggie. I think it's super important. I would add on another thing you could try, though, is , Stepping outside of the conversation to narrate it for them, right?

Because it's like, you know, we talk about narrating the debate. The person who explains to the audience what the, what your opponent's saying, what you're saying, and keeps them following along wins the debate. And sometimes conversations need that too. So what Maggie said is exactly right. You might even say to them, so you're using the word gruesome here.

And I've explained to you why that's not the same. Abortion is not the same as open heart surgery. So just pause for a minute and think about what you're telling me. You're telling me that you think abortion is good and legal. Good, is good, and should be legal. At the same time you're telling me it's gruesome and sad.

Do you see the disconnect? Just kind of narrate for them their own feelings. You're telling me different things. You're telling me you , like abortion, or that it's good, and that it's sad and gruesome. Can you explain to me why the disconnect? Make them explain that. Honestly, they might really struggle, and they might start to see, Oh my goodness, my worldview that I've accepted does not match the worldview I've internalized in my heart, and maybe there's a problem here I need to work out.

Maggie: Yeah, that's a good idea, Seth. I think we need to get used to the, to just stepping outside of our conversations, even when we're in the midst of conversations with people.

Yeah, well, since we have a couple minutes left, I wanted to go back to how she said that it's verbal abuse to really to be honest about what abortion is. So I'm wondering, like, what is actual verbal abuse? And why is this not abuse? How can we distinguish?

Ethan: I think...

 There's a line that's been lost between verbal abuse and speaking the truth. And speaking the truth in love. Because it is possible to speak the truth and bordering and be verbally abusing someone. not trying to justify, you know, speaking the truth in anger or harshness. But, today, a lot of people will label what they don't want to hear as verbal abuse.

 And so, and I think... Hate speech. And I think in this case, what she's getting at is people are saying things about what she's doing that she doesn't want to hear. And because of that, it is verbally abusive. As long as these people are saying these things, you know, in firmly, but in gentleness and love, what they're doing is speaking the truth about what she's doing.

, that's, that's my thought. On that what are you guys saying? 

Seth: Yeah, I think that's I think it's a really good point And I think abuse comes in many forms, but abuse has a similar intent, right? Your intent is to harm someone Yes, right and like abortion whatever your reason may be when you pay someone to kill a child your intent is to kill someone So it takes many forms abortion has several forms abuse has many forms But the intent is similar.

Your intent is to harm someone. Telling someone the truth, especially as Ethan's saying in love, your intent is, it's going to cause them some discomfort maybe, but your intent is to help the person, to desire what is best for that person. Clearly not the same thing. So yeah, I can take a truthful message and just make someone, and I, I, 

it's definitely not the same thing. 

Maggie: Yeah, and I do want to clarify, if someone, even someone who we agree with on their positions, We could still disagree with them on how they are approaching people. So we don't want to just defend anyone who agrees with us. If someone is actually being verbally abusive, obviously, we do not support that.

If someone is telling the truth, We need to be clear that that's not verbal abuse. We need to tell the truth.

Seth: Yeah I think people can go watch our videos come on a Justice Ride come to day of action whatever and they can learn that right Cuz it's not just what to say. It's how to say it. We care a lot about that 

Maggie: Exactly and Stephanie Gray talks about that a lot in her book Love Unleashes Life so we'll put that in the show notes, but I just read that recently finished it recently and Yeah, I thought at the beginning of the book like This is going to be kind of simple stuff that I already know, but even...

It's a very small book, but it's great. Yeah, like one day I was actually reading it and it helped me that day in outreach. Awesome. Wow. Something I read in it. 

Seth: Chapter, I think it's chapter three, Communicating the Heart. That's my favorite chapter. Just even like the, at the end, the comments she has like suggested questions are so good.

That's worth the price of the book alone. 

Maggie: Okay. Yeah. So check that out. Definitely. Um, it's definitely worthwhile, not just to know the arguments, but to know how to speak to people in a loving way. Yeah. So with that being said, please go leave us five star review. , check us out on Instagram and debrief with us again next week.