I'm on assignment in Appleton, Wisconsin. Students from Lawrence University invited me to cheese country to argue that all reasonable liberals should be pro-life. I spoke for about an hour followed by more than an hour of lively interactive Q and A with pro-choice students. What could be more fun?
After the event, I sat down to a cup of organic tea to discuss strategy with the pro-life club. We talked about an upcoming "cemetery for the innocent" they are planning. Pro-lifers set up crosses (sometimes thousands) as a memorial to the children killed by legal abortion.
Usually when students set up the cemetery activity, they expect to make an impact without making a case for the value of the unborn. It is difficult for pro-lifers to see how weird this appears to the average pro-choice person. If we don't make our case in conjunction with these events, we look like a pitiable group of people with a fetish for fetuses. (I think. I stole this phrase from Peter Kreeft).
Do you have a fetus fetish? I don't. I don't have some weird affection for the unborn. At the earliest stages, they look pretty primitive. But looks deceive. If they are living whole organisms with a human nature, they matter (search "abortion" on this site or click on my picture for help with this). Rational argument leaves me no alternative but to stand up for their rights. But if we don't interact with folks who see our cemeteries for the innocent and help them reflect on our rational argument, our pro-life activism communicates little more than fetus fetishism.
Here is a chilling editorial about abortion from the Gamecock, the student newspaper of the University of South Carolina. What is so startling about it is that it in no way attempts to veil the fact that many believe that abortion for convenience sake is perfectly ok. Sorry for the long url.
http://media.www.dailygamecock.com/media/paper247/news/2006/03/02/Viewpoints/Editorial.South.Dakota.Abortion.Plans.Hurts.Everyone-1649254.shtml?sourcedomain=www.dailygamecock.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com
Posted by: Justin | March 02, 2006 at 07:04 AM
“…i spoke for about an hour followed by more than an hour of lively interactive Q and A with pro-choice students. What could be more fun…”
I thought I’d mention something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I’ve noticed how prolifers repeatedly refer to their job as “fun”. Steve does it here in this posting and Scott K does it quite a bit too. In one of the tape lecture series (available from STR), after winding some clever argument, Scott remarks with a smile something like, “you see how this is going to be fun tonight ladies and gentlemen.”
Well, first off let me say, it IS fun. For the philosophically minded, it is often a pleasure to argue. Especially when you know what you’re talking about and the other guy doesn’t. And pro-choicers usually royally suck at being pro-choice.
But I think at the heart of these comments lies a deeper truth. That being that mental masturbation is mostly what the prolifers job is all about. To see this a little clearer, use the STR technique “trot out the toddler”.
Suppose that Scott and Steve were speaking to a crowd of 1000 students who were in support of a hypothetical ‘Nazi’ party with a purported right to burn 1.3 million Jewish toddlers a year.
My god man, would there be any “fun” in that auditorium that night? Sure sounds deadly serious to me.
Posted by: Tony Montano | March 02, 2006 at 09:47 AM
Tony: "That being that mental masturbation is mostly what the prolifers job is all about. To see this a little clearer, ..."
The phrase "mental masturbation" implies that one's mental energies are being used for a purpose that is not their proper use, and that has no possible profit.
Before we spend our time exploring your analogy (remember, analogy is always suspect!), can you directly claim that prolifer's activities fit that (or some other) definition of "mental masturbation"?
Analogy is wonderful for intuitively exploring truth, but they're horrible for discovering truth.
-Billy
Posted by: William Tanksley | March 02, 2006 at 06:05 PM
I think the "foetus fetish" concept is something that sprouts only out of the most self-deluding, hardened consciences, who are unreachable by any means outside divine intervention. No sort of argument, no kind of logic, no apologetics, no demonstration or discussion will shake the position of someone so deluded that they think unborn babies are not human nor to be protected to the point they would consider this to be "fetishism."
Apologetics has its place and is wonderful where God uses it. But there are flat out people who are utterly unreachable by logic and reason, at least in some areas. As Jonathan Swift said:
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."
Posted by: Christopher Taylor | March 04, 2006 at 08:45 AM