Trying to convince my friend to be pro-life and need help

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Hey everyone. I have a best friend named Darrell. He is pro-choice to the core. He says there is nothing wrong with abortion. He also has this viewpoint that because the earth is so bad and there are so many wars and diseases and things like that that people should be bringing children into the world. He is not a Christian. I am wanting to convince him to be pro-life but have no idea how to go about doing this. Please help.
 
I find the most convincing argument to secular people is to ask if a parent should be allowed to kill a child of 2 years old because they are just too inconvenient, cost too much, are taking too long to potty train, or because they look like the milkman… “Most” people will say “Of course not!!!”

Then I’ll reply with, “OK, now that we’ve determined that a 2 year old has human rights and can not be killed by his/her parents, how about if they are only 1 year and 11 months?” … because … “We’ve agreed the child has a right to live, now we’re just arguing about what age they get that right”

With a hard core case like your friend sounds to be, I would probably start the question with the child being 17 or so… But you get the idea.

Hope it helps…

God bless

Oh!!! And the most obvious answer is in your signature… Pray
 
Get yourself a copy of Peter Kreeft’s Three Approaches to Abortion. Kreeft is a professor of philosophy who has also authored a textbook on logic.

The first section is Kreeft’s “Apple Argument” in which he begins with the fact that we all know what an apple is and logically takes that to the conclusion that abortion must be outlawed.
 
I would focus on the issue of equal rights for all people. If your friend is like most people in the modern West, he comes at issues of rights with a bias towards equality for all people. If you can bring him to admit that it is wrong to deny recognition of the right to life to any class of human beings even on the basis of another class’s right to liberty, then it is just a matter of demonstrating that the unborn are human beings, and we have science on our side for that.

I imagine he may object that being human is more than a matter of genes and biological life but is determined by mental ability. The logical followup would be to ask if that means young children who have been born or developmentally disabled people are less human, even sub-human, because they don’t have the same level of intelligence that the rest of us do. If he isn’t totally given over to the hatred of human life (which he may be, and you’re not likely to get anywhere in that case) then probably he’ll then try to establish some very minimal standard of intelligence or awareness that will include as many of the born as possible while excluding the unborn, or reject the idea of the single threshold and insist that birth is just a convenient marker in a process of becoming human that’s really something gradual. At this point the person is just irrationally trying to maintain their previous political position after its original basis has been undermined.

Really, it’s unlikely that a single debate between two people will cause the other to change his position. We tend to retreat further into our own opinions and build defensive walls around then when we encounter disagreement. The best you will likely be able to do is show that there is a rational, charitable, human rights-based argument for the pro-life position, and hope and pray that with time and the grace of God the seeds you plant might bear fruit and he might be converted.
 
Just have them try to explain abortion to a 6 year old girl.
 
Myqyl said:
I find the most convincing argument to secular people is to ask if a parent should be allowed to kill a child of 2 years old because they are just too inconvenient, cost too much, are taking too long to potty train, or because they look like the milkman… “Most” people will say “Of course not!!!”

Then I’ll reply with, “OK, now that we’ve determined that a 2 year old has human rights and can not be killed by his/her parents, how about if they are only 1 year and 11 months?” … because … “We’ve agreed the child has a right to live, now we’re just arguing about what age they get that right”

With a hard core case like your friend sounds to be, I would probably start the question with the child being 17 or so… But you get the idea.

Hope it helps…

God bless

Oh!!! And the most obvious answer is in your signature… Pray
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I agree completely to this post here! Try this out and hopefully something to him stands out. If he has children you could also add to ask him now looking at his child would he have been ok killing his then 3 month on old in the womb? Because really what’s the difference from a 1-2 month old newborn then a 1-2 month old in the womb?. does the womb make a baby not feel pain or something. I don’t mean to say it rudely but you can ask this calmly and sincerely. Give him somethings to think about. I know at one point in my life I had selfishly had this go through my mind, what changed my mind was that a friend had showed a video of photos of how babies look in the womb and what age. She was against abortion, which I was too until the recession and found myself with the same question of “what do I do?” I saw a photo of a baby about 12 weeks old and noticed how this baby had all its parts! I felt grossed out of myself to even consider such a thing, and its something ill never forgive myself for even thinking, I now have this beautiful 3 year old 🙂 my fourth child. and now I will live my life helping to change others minds, because really we should never ever have an option to end a child’s life just because it’s in the womb. I’m even against birth control because of how it can prevent or even terminate a pregnancy. I will continue to have children as long as God want’s me to and as many. He will bless us and met our needs he did for me even with the recession and my 4 children. There is no reason to even have to think of such a thing. I know my message is long I apologize but I wrote all this in hopes that maybe it can help others, Maybe you can use my message somehow to get him to change his mind on the subject. Or maybe show him some photos of babies in the whom and ask him how can he have the heart to end a life of a 14 week old baby in the womb. … as quoted above, your answer is also there in your sig. 🙂 the rosary answers all prayers. I will pray mine today and pray for your words to change your friends heart. God bless!

BTW: I was not attending church at this time of thinking. I had left the catholic church 5 years back and went protestant. My protestant church was against abortion but always questioned why I continued to have children I couldn’t afford. This thought I had right when leaving the protestant church. I came back to Catholic the moment I realized what on earth I was thinking. If I had stayed catholic in the first place I would have never had this thought at all. I hope your friend becomes catholic too.

-Nicki
 
Thank you everyone for your advice. It is greatly appreciated. I am now inspired to create a document with facts about babies in the womb and photos of them as well. Maybe that will help to convince him.
 
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