"It is also important to understand the four basic ways to respond to pro-abortion allegations. These are: (1) refutation (2) clarification (3) parallelism and (4) extrapolation. It may be necessary to use a combination of these methods. Refutation & Clarification- Refutation: To refute an argument means to expose it as a lie in the most direct manner possible. Be careful not to call someone a 'liar' unless you can prove that he or she has been caught in this same lie several times before. You may say, however, `that statement is a lie`, or tell someone that he has obviously been lied to or deceived by friends. An example of refutation: `We will never go back to the days when thousands of women were slaughtered every year by backalley quacks` - The claim that thousands of women once died of backyard abortions is an outright lie. In 1972, the year before abortion was legalised in the USA, the Center for Disease Control documented only 90 deaths caused by 'illegal' abortions. The following year there were 57 deaths due to 'legal' abortion! Clarification: In some instances, a pro-abortionist will make a statement that literally cannot be answered because it is so broad in scope. Your job is to get him to clarify his statement so that you can make an effective reply. This may involve saying `What do you mean by that?` or `How do you know that (where's your proof)?` An example of clarification: `You anti-choice people are all just violent fanatics!` - What do you mean by that? Are you specifically accusing me or my organisation of doing something violent? Parallelism & Extrapolation- Parallelism: This is the most common tactic used by pro-lifers to expose the basically illogical nature of pro-abortion allegations. Only the reasoning of a good argument will stand the test of being properly applied to a wide variety of situations. Parallelism consists of simply applying the pro-abortionist's reasoning to a similar situation in a different context, and showing how illogical his reasoning really is. An example of parallelism: `Woman's body, woman's choice! Keep your laws off my body!` - If the unborn child is part of the woman's body because it is inside her, does being inside this room make us part of the room? Extrapolation: Pro-abortionists inevitably focus on the 'hard cases' which seem to be most favourable to the pro-abortion side. When you extrapolate, you are merely extending their argument to include the current or impending situation. The basic idea is to force the pro-abortionist into 'drawing the line'. An example of extrapolation: `Abortion should be legal in the case of rape, incest, deformities etc` - Abortions for rape and incest account for less that one percent of all abortions in this country. What about the others? Do you support abortion if the woman is too young? Too old? Has too many kids? What if her birth control failed? Or if the baby is the wrong sex? Does this mean you really support abortion for any reason, no matter how frivolous? (If the pro-abortionist draws the line somewhere, ask him what makes these unborn children different from those he would kill). Don't let them confuse you... `Ours is an age of substitutes: Instead of language we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and instead of genuine ideas, bright ideas.` -American writer Eric Bentley The primary moral issues facing the world today - contraception, surgical and chemical abortion, euthanasia, population control, 'gay rights', pornography, cloning, IVF and others - are each extremely broad in scope. They all encompass vast areas in the fields of moral, scientific, and social theory, and each issue has many sub-issues and is attached in many ways to all of the other moral issues. The sheer dimensions of the vast galaxy of moral problems are staggering, but this does not mean that the questions the issues pose are proportionately complicated. Anti-lifers depend very heavily on making even the simplest moral questions appear so complicated that there can never be any `truly right or wrong answer` regarding its morality (this tactic is called 'mystagoguery'). However, any properly trained pro-life activist can boil each question down into a minimum of simple yes-or-no core questions, as the following weeks will show." "Pro-abortion slogan #1: We demand the freedom to choose! Freedom of choice! Summary of the Pro-Life Response. (1) Clarification: We must distinguish between licit and illicit freedoms. (2) Parallelism: Unlimited 'freedom to choose' means simple anarchy. (3) Extrapolation: No freedom is absolute. The 'freedom to choose' slogan is short, catchy, and appeals to the patriot in all of us. Freedom is the basis upon which Western democracy was founded, and remains one of our fundamental guiding principles. Who could be against it? But while appealing to the freedom-lover in all of us, pro-abortionists simultaneously imply that pro-life activists are somehow anti-freedom and anti-democratic by calling us 'anti-choice'. However, this slogan promotes anarchy, not 'choice'. If our nation took the slogan 'Freedom of Choice' at face value, the 'freedom to choose' would supersede all other freedoms. Rapists could claim the 'freedom to choose' rape. Those who dislike homosexuals could claim the 'freedom to choose' beating them up. If you use these examples, a few pro-abortionists will be sharp enough to point out that rape and assault involve a victim. This will give you a fine opportunity to stress that abortion also involves a victim - the most helpless and innocent victim of all. The point here is that no freedom is abosolute. All freedoms have limits on them, and for good reason. Unlimited personal freedom eventually leads to slavery. In Australia, we have thousands of laws, orders, and local ordinances of every type governing or curtailing activities from murder to double-parking, and each one of these restrictions limits our 'freedom of choice' to some extent. Pro-abortion slogan #2: Abortion is perfectly legal! Summary of the Pro-Life Response. (1) Clarification: Just because something is legal does not make it right or moral. (2) Parallelism: You would have been a good slave owner. After all, slavery was perfectly legal in the United States before the Civil War. (3) Parallelism: Do you support all activities that are legal - say, femal genital mutilation (FGM) in some African countries? This slogan should send chills up and down the spine of anyone who possesses a sense of history. For centuries, killers have hid behind the law to perpetrate their atrocities, eg. Adolf Hitler 'legally' exterminating Gypsies and the handicapped. A pro-lifer can expose the weaknesses of this argument by pointing out that, many times in the past, man's laws have just not been good enough. They have been used to implement genocide, prejudice and numerous atrocities. Aside from this, abortion is NOT perfectly legal in many states of Australia. New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland all have strict penal codes PROHIBITING any form of abortion. Furthermore, laws in Western Australia, the ACT, and South Australia only allow abortion under strict conditions (which commonly go unenforced or ignored by abortionists). If pro-abortions are so concerned with following what is 'perfectly legal' then they should enforce these laws instead of constantly trying to overturn them. It seems that they only agree with laws which suit their agenda! Pro-abortion slogan #3: You can't legislate morality! Summary of the Pro-Life Response. (1) Parallelism: Of course you can legislate morality! Name one law that does not legislate morality in some way? (2) Parallelism: Do you believe that taxpayers should pay for abortions for poor women? You do? Why are you forcing your morality on me by trying to force me to pay for abortions? (3) Parallelism: Isn't it 'legislating morality' to say that the law of the land is that human life begins at birth? Does this not impose a particular religious standard on when human life begins? Any person who uses this slogan is extremely naive about the realities of living in a society. Of course people can legislate morality! We do it all the time! Legislating morality is the primary intent of every one of our hundreds of thousands of existing or proposed laws. The extensive legislating of morality is absolutely essential to the survival of any society. Most of our country's important laws are based on or derived from the Ten Commandments and Judeo-Christian tradition, and many of these directly legislate morality for the good of the individual and society. Nearly every criminal law on the books can be traced to some religious principle, eg. `Thou Shalt Not Kill`: laws against murder, manslaughter, mutilation, possession of unregistered firearms, drink driving, and the sale of illegal drugs. eg. `Thou Shalt Not Steal`: laws against robbery, fraud, shoplifting, theft, insider trading and embezzlement."