Audio only:
From the beginning, support for abortion has relied on using language to hide reality — specifically the reality of killing an innocent boy or girl. We expect an avalanche of such language in the year ahead, given the likelihood of a new US Supreme Court abortion decision. In preparation, we asked pro-life brainiac Stephanie Gray Connors to help us cut through the deadly propaganda.
Cy Kellett:
Challenging deceptive language around abortion. Stephanie Gray Connors is next.
Hello and welcome to Focus, the Catholic Answers podcast for living, understanding and defending your Catholic faith. In the coming year, expect lots and lots of conversation, debate, arguing, fighting, and even a good deal of deception around abortion, because here in the United States, the Supreme Court has taken up an important abortion case and there’s all this question about are they intending to overturn Roe versus Wade or not. So, both sides will do their best to have their say while we all await that decision of the Supreme Court.
We wanted to talk about that because over the course of the next year, as these things happen, there’s probably going to be a great deal of misinformation mixed in with all the information, and some of that misinformation just has to do with how we talk about abortion. So, we invited Stephanie Gray Connors from Love Unleashes Life to come. She’s just a wonderful speaker on pro-life issues. Just a very, very clear thinker and very clear in her use of language.
And so, what I wanted to do was confront her with an article that’s from The Nation by a writer named Elie Mystal, The Supreme Court May Have Just Signed Roe Versus Wade’s Death Warrant. And, the language is heated language, language meant to make anyone who’s pro-life feel like a fool. But it’s also… It accomplishes… Let’s put it this way. It accomplishes those ends, I would say, by being deceptive. Here’s what Stephanie Gray Connors had to say about it.
Cy Kellett:
Stephanie Gray Connors, thank you very much for joining us on Focus.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Thanks for having me on.
Cy Kellett:
We’re kind of anticipating a year of more intense conversation about Roe versus Wade this year because the Supreme Court has taken a case that seems like it might have grave implications there, so we’re expecting a lot of public debate. Are you expecting the same this year?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Absolutely, and I think it’s a great opportunity to realize the debate happening kind of in the courtroom is something that can and should happen in the public square and we need to seize this opportunity to really engage the hearts and minds of the average person on abortion and do it in a way that perhaps hasn’t been done as much recently as this certainly will lead to.
Cy Kellett:
So, it seems to me that in addition to debate, one of the things that we get and have gotten since the decision and even before the decision, is a kind of attempt to short circuit the debate by using language that makes the pro-life position ridiculous. And, it seems to me even the mainstream media uses this kind of euphemistic language that’s designed to make you feel dumb for being pro-life.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Yes, absolutely. We’re up against the power of language, which can be used in our favor. But the other side recognizes it can be used in their favor, and so, they will often use words to describe their position, to describe our position, in such a way as to make our position look unreasonable. So, we need to come on the offensive and know how to present our case well as well as to respond to the false claims or misleading claims that the other side will make about pro-life people or pro-life positions.
Cy Kellett:
Well, you know, you’re one of the world’s clearest speakers on this, Stephanie, without question, and so, I wanted to come to you as we kind of head into the Roe versus Wade year that we’re anticipating in order… Especially for younger folks who have not been at this since the 1970s, you know? And, haven’t been through the cycles of how the language goes and how the kind of obfuscating and manipulating goes in order to change people’s feelings on this or to prevent people from, you know, having the obvious… What seems to be the obvious position of thinking babies are good and you shouldn’t be destroying them, you know? That you have to use a lot of emotional manipulation to get people there.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Yes, we do. So…
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, so…
Stephanie Gray Connors:
I’m sorry. Go on.
Cy Kellett:
[crosstalk 00:04:14] so, the idea… No, no. So, the idea is… Of this episode, then, is to kind of present you with some of that language.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
[inaudible 00:04:21]
Cy Kellett:
So that people are prepared or have kind of weapons to be prepared over the course of the coming year. And, to do that, I found an article in The Nation magazine by a writer named Elie Mystal, and it uses quite… Or, the writer, Elie Mystal, uses quite a bit of this language. So, I thought I’d just read you some of the paragraphs, and I don’t think we’ll get very far in because so much… Like, there’s so much of this loaded language here. I don’t think we’ll get very far in without having almost exhausted the repertoire of manipulation, I think.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So, the… This is how the article was presented in The Nation magazine. “The Supreme Court may have just signed Roe versus Wade’s death warrant. The newly ultra-conservative court has agreed to hear a direct challenge to the landmark 1973 abortion case, a move that can mean nothing good.” And, it’s… I mean, I actually think that’s correct. It’s just, I would say, lots of good. Like, I think that’s probably right. It does seem like the Supreme Court is doing what Elie Mystal and the editors at The Nation are suggesting.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Well, the other side realizes if the debate is not open and certainly if it’s not re-opened, then everything is in their favor because right now, there is widespread access to abortion. So, anything which puts abortion under the microscope and calls into question whether the status quo should be remained puts acceptance for abortion on demand in jeopardy.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
It puts what abortion is in the limelight. It puts who the pre-born child is in the limelight. So, he’s smart enough to know that this is certainly a threat to maintaining the status quo.
Cy Kellett:
All right. So, I’m going to read you the first paragraph and then I’ll get your responses to it, to the language used there.
Cy Kellett:
“The current Constitutional rule regarding abortion holds that women have the right to choose whether to continue with their pregnancy before a fetus becomes viable. Fetal [inaudible 00:06:27]… Fetal…”. Excuse me. “Fetal viability is the point after which a fetus is thought to have a chance of surviving outside a woman’s body, thus giving the government a legitimate state interest in the health and well-being of the fetus separate and apart from the parent. Fetal viability is believed to take place around 23 to 24 weeks.”
Cy Kellett:
Your thoughts on that paragraph?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Yeah. So, I just like wrote down on the paper in front of me three words, and so, the three words that jump out at me are fetus or fetal, viability…
Cy Kellett:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Stephanie Gray Connors:
And, parent. And so, if I were engaging him in debate, my first question would be, well, what does the word fetus mean? How do we define that term? And, the reality is the word fetus is actually, whether people realize it or not, is using another language. It’s Latin. It’s not English. And, it’s a term that means young one or offspring. But whether you speak about something in another language or your own language, it means the same thing. By way of comparison, you know, these are my finger bones underneath my skin, but also my phalanges if we were to use the Latin term. But whether we use the term phalanges or we say finger bones, it means the same thing. So, whether we use the term fetus or in English, we translate it to young one or offspring, it means the same thing.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So, the question then becomes is it ethical to end the life of our offspring, which then leads to the second word that jumped out at me, which was parent. He’s acknowledging by use of that term that we’re not even talking about a stranger to stranger relationship, but rather, a parent to child relationship. So, we have to ask the question, what does civil societies expect of parents? And, the answer to that is civil societies expect parents to help their children, not harm their children, and at the very least, to meet their child’s basic needs, which is food, clothing, shelter and love. If you starve a child, if you neglect a child, there are legal consequences for that. So, we shouldn’t be drawing a line at birth because before or after birth, we’re still dealing with offspring.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
And then, the third word that jumped out at me was viability and I often want to point out to abortion supporters, when we speak of viability… In other words, the child’s ability to survive outside the womb, that’s dependent on two things, where in the world the pregnant woman and her child are…
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
And, how advanced technology is. So, if you are in the jungle in Africa, a child will not be viable at 24 weeks. But if you’re at a hospital in New York City, a child will be viable at 24 weeks. Quite frankly, some babies have survived at 23, 22, even, I think there was a baby that survived at 21 weeks. So, viability is a sliding scale dependent on technology and dependent on geographic location. So, we want to ask the question. Why should someone’s right to life be grounded in where they are?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Or, how advanced technology is? Shouldn’t our right to life be grounded in who we are as members of the human family?
Cy Kellett:
Okay. [inaudible 00:09:41] I would like to just… One thing stood out to me as well and I want to ask you about this. The use of this phrase, “thus giving the government a legitimate state interest in the health and well-being of the fetus.” Meaning that once the child reaches viability, the government gets a legitimate state interest. Well, that’s basically settling the debate without debating, isn’t it?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Well, even when he brings that up, I think, well, why is the child’s ability to survive outside the womb…?
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
The determining factor for the state’s interest? First of all, even if the state wasn’t interested in protecting the child, the child should still be protected because our… How much we’re wanted by our parents, by another person, or by society, again, is not what our right to life is grounded in. But, yeah. I would ask… You know, again, if I had the opportunity, ask him the question. Why does vi…? Why is viability the determining factor for state interest? Because that’s just about survival. It’s not about identity or nature. Whether you’re human or not is independent of whether you can survive. I mean, would you survive on the moon without a spacesuit? No. You’re human, though, so you need certain environments to survive in other environments. So, you need a spacesuit to survive in outer space. It doesn’t mean you’re not human if you’re denied the spacesuit.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So, in the same way, you need a womb when you’re very early in pregnancy to survive and continue to live. But if you’re denied the womb through an abortion, it doesn’t mean you weren’t human. It doesn’t mean you didn’t have a right to life.
Cy Kellett:
Amen. All right. I’m going to read you the second paragraph and it starts with a…
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Okay.
Cy Kellett:
What [inaudible 00:11:19]. I am not… Well, here. I’ll just read it. Here we go.
Cy Kellett:
“Forced birth activists have been incredibly successful at whittling away a pregnant woman’s right to bodily autonomy before fetal viability.”
Cy Kellett:
I’m just going to stop because there’s just so much in that sentence. I’m not… I don’t even want to do the whole paragraph. We’ll get to the rest of the paragraph.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
[inaudible 00:11:40]
Cy Kellett:
“Forced birth activists have been incredibly successful at whittling away a pregnant woman’s right to bodily autonomy before fetal viability.”
Stephanie Gray Connors:
I’m glad you stopped there because I was about to start taking notes again. So, two things jump out at me.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
The first is “bodily autonomy.” And, I would say when does bodily autonomy begin? Because what about females in the womb? What about their bodily autonomy? If we look at abortions in certain parts of the world, like Southeast Asia, where you have cultures that have a preference for the male child, there are high rates of abortions directed specifically because the pre-born child has been determined to be female. So, whether it’s abortion or infanticide on females, generally even abortion supporters are outraged at that. But if they would be outraged at that, then they should be outraged at any abortion. So, if we’re talking about the right to our own autonomy, what about the autonomy of the pre-born child, particularly the female pre-born child?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
And then, “forced birth activists.” Again, I mean, that’s why we’re doing this, what you said, is the power of language.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
To either advance our position or tear down our position. But to describe someone as a forced birth activist makes it sound like we are, you know, well, forcing something on someone that… That isn’t right. But I would ask, wait, aren’t you a forced birth activist? I would ask this individual if someone was eight months pregnant and wanted to have an abortion, would you allow them an abortion at eight months? Most abortion supporters would not allow abortion at eight months. That makes them uncomfortable. But then, if they would oppose abortion at eight months, then wouldn’t that mean they’re a forced birth activist? They’re forcing birth to come in the next four weeks? And, if we’ll allow people to force birth so that it occurs in the next four weeks, then why not so it occurs in the next eight weeks or the next 12 weeks or basically the 40 weeks, the duration of a pregnancy?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
I would also ask such an individual what’s the alternative to a forced birth activist. If we don’t force, in a sense, people to complete pregnancy with birth, what is the alternative? The reality is the alternative is homicide. The child is alive and abortion ends that child’s life. If the child wasn’t alive, there’d be no need in the abortion supporter’s mind for abortion. So, when we have the choice between compelling someone to continue their pregnancy or commit homicide, which of those two things seems worse?
Cy Kellett:
And… And, by the logic of this language, you know, the requirement that parents feed their children, you know, is like a forced feeding advocate or that you not neglect your children is forced attention advocate. You know? Like, we force you to do these things.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Great reply. Yeah. Absolutely.
Cy Kellett:
And, it… But I have to say, though, and I wonder… Just get your impression about this. I’m sure there are people who really like the term forced birth activist because it has a kind of rhetorical power. But part of the rhetorical power is its utter ridiculousness. I mean, when I see that language, I think this writer has gone too far and is actually arguing our case without knowing it because people look at that and go, “Come on. Get over it. That language is silly.”
Stephanie Gray Connors:
I mean, that’s a good point. The average person, you know, walking around, living their life, who might even support abortion in certain circumstances, does not think about using language like that. So, just as that language is jarring to you and me, it likely would be very jarring to the average person as well. It’s only those who are staunch abortion supporters who really want to push through an agenda to have widespread access to abortion. Those are the individuals that go to this extreme use of phrases like that.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Yeah. And, I think we can… All of us who try to explain a position and take a clear position, we can all fall into rhetorical overkill. It’s always a risk of what we’re doing. I think that’s rhetorical overkill. I don’t think that that serves his purposes.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Sure. Yeah. And, I mean, in that sense, it can be a reminder to we who are pro-life to use language to our advantage but make sure it actually accomplishes the goal.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
That it is to our advantage.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Now, he obviously must think that going this extreme…
Cy Kellett:
It does something.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
To this extreme length works for him. But the question is, will it?
Cy Kellett:
Right. Okay. So, continuing with that paragraph.
Cy Kellett:
“And, they’ve been incredibly successful at making it hard for women to access their rights with the help of abortion providers and drugs during the brief window many states still allow them to have any. But fetal viability is more or less the legal line in the sand and has been since the landmark decision in Roe versus Wade in 1973. Before her fetus reaches viability, a pregnant woman is to be treated as a fully formed human being. After viability, Republican controlled states are allowed to treat her as a malfunctioning incubator who can be forced to serve the state’s alleged interest against her free will.”
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Hmm. So much there. Okay.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So, I had two thoughts. Let’s go with the one where he… Oh, shoot. I’ve got baby brain hitting me.
Cy Kellett:
Do you want…?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
I had [crosstalk 00:17:18].
Cy Kellett:
Well, we should explain that to people who are listening.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
[crosstalk 00:17:21].
Cy Kellett:
By baby brain, you mean… What are you? Seven months? Eight months pregnant now?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So… I’m… Almost eight months pregnant, yeah.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So, I’m about to give birth very soon. Aw, shoot. Can you read it again [crosstalk 00:17:33]?
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Sure. No problem. [inaudible 00:17:34]. No problem at all.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
[inaudible 00:17:36] [crosstalk 00:17:35]
Cy Kellett:
Okay. So…
Stephanie Gray Connors:
[inaudible 00:17:37] just write it down.
Cy Kellett:
“They’ve been incredibly successful at making it hard for women to access their rights.” Why don’t you just stop me whenever you hear something you want to comment on? “And, with the help of abortion providers and drugs, during the brief window many states will still allow them to have any. But fetal viability is more or less the legal line in the sand and has been since the landmark decision in Roe versus Wade in 1973.” Before…
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Okay. So, we’ll just stop right there.
Cy Kellett:
Okay.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So, when he talks about, again, fetal viability, I would love to ask him the question, what if technology were to change overnight so that viability isn’t moved from, let’s say, 24 weeks to 18 weeks? Let’s say it’s moved to fertilization, which, in a sense, is somewhat true because in the process of in vitro fertilization, setting aside the ethics of IVF, pre-born children can survive outside their mum’s bodies. With IVF, they’re conceived in a Petri dish and put in freezers before they’re implanted. So, we actually have the earliest and youngest humans among us who can survive outside the mother’s body. So, I would love to ask someone like that, does he support protecting all those children who are therefore not dependent currently on someone else’s body and are surviving outside such a body?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
But if we were able to not only have children survive at fertilization but from that point for the duration of pregnancy, which we currently can’t do. So, they’re not going to survive forever in a freezer. They ultimately need to be, you know, transplanted or, you know, moved into the womb. If we had that, would he oppose abortion? If we could remove a three week embryo from someone and place that child in some type of incubator starting then instead of an abortion, would he support that?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Now, I don’t know his answer, but I do know from my experience of debating abortion supporters that they are often very uncomfortable with such an idea for the same reason they typically don’t support adoption the way they run to abortion, because adoption essentially says, “Well, my child will still be around but I won’t be the one to have that child and I’d rather just get rid of the child entirely by having an abortion.” Whereas, if we could actually have pre-born child viability at three weeks pregnancy, the child would still exist but be raised by someone else. Would the abortion supporter be comfortable with that?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
The other point that jumped out at me I’ve got written down here… When he talks about a woman accessing her rights. And, I would ask the question, when does a woman’s right to abortion begin? And, why at that point? Now, he might say, “Well, the obvious answer would be when she can get pregnant, you know, when…”. But then, I would say, “Well, what is the ability to get pregnant? How is that different from prior to puberty? Isn’t that a level of development, that when a female is born and for the first, let’s say, 13 years of that female’s life after birth, that female has not developed enough to have gone through puberty to be able to conceive a child. Is the female still a human being with fundamental human rights?” And, the answer is yes because the female’s right to life is not grounded in how developed she is, how developed her sexual organs are. Her right to life is grounded in who she is as a member of the human family.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So then, I would make the point that the only difference between the pre-born child and someone who is born is like the difference between a pre-pubescent girl and a post-pubescent woman, which is level of development. One is more developed with their sexual organs. The other is more developed entirely overall. You know, the pre-born child versus a born child. Physically, intellectually and so forth. But what is consistent with all these individuals is they’re members of the human family. So, shouldn’t our right to life…? Again, it comes back to, be grounded in who we are, not how developed we are.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Continuing on.
Cy Kellett:
“Before her fetus reaches viability, a pregnant woman is to be treated as a fully formed human being. After viability, Republican controlled states are allowed to treat her as a malfunctioning incubator who can be forced to serve the state’s alleged interest against her free will.”
Cy Kellett:
Want me to keep reading or you want to…?
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Well… No. Yeah. Let’s talk about incubator. You know, I would actually have… I would love to have fun with that and say why is that a bad thing. And, I say that as a… As a pregnant woman who delights in the fact that I have a child in my body who is dependent on me, who is bonded to me and connected to me in a way that isn’t even connected to my husband, that I have this special relationship with our child by the fact that I can incubate our baby.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
That’s a joy. That’s a privilege. That’s an honor, to have someone who is so needy and dependent on you. What a delight. So, I would actually say, “Hey, maybe that’s not such a bad thing, to be an incubator.”
Cy Kellett:
Well, it does seem that the things that women can do and that are special about women have to be denigrated in order to justify abortion. You have to say, “Well, it’s not that important, you know, carrying a baby.” It’s not the… It’s strange to me that it’s not the… The pro-life people that would call a woman a malfunctioning incubator. It’s the… It’s the pro-choice person who would say that.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Right. That… That’s a great point. It really is an attack on the feminine and femininity.
Cy Kellett:
Right.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
And, what sets women apart from men, our ability to conceive new life in our very body and sustain that life not only before birth but even after birth through breast feeding. To think that a pre-born child, their… Or, a newborn child, rather. Their body is not designed to consume food as we consume it. You can’t just give them a banana mushed up. I mean, if you are going to provide an alternative to breast milk, it has to be formula. It’s not a bottle of water. It’s not cow’s milk. It’s not almond milk or oat milk. I mean, it’s a very specific formulation.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
That is designed for sustaining their bodies. But their bodies really cannot be sustained with much. It is… It is someone else’s body, the breast milk of their mother or a wet nurse, or some very specifically designed formulation that would not harm their bodies.
Cy Kellett:
I never thought about that. That’s beautifully put, Stephanie. All right. I’m going to give you some more. And, we can’t go… We’re not… This is the beginning of the third paragraph. I told you we might not get out of the first three paragraphs and we’re not. But that’s what happens when you get euphemistic writing. There’s a lot to work through. Okay. So, this is how Elie Mystal continues.
Cy Kellett:
“But that arrangement has never satisfied conservatives. They have consistently sought to take away the possibility of autonomous choice earlier and earlier in the gestation process. For some conservatives, the ones who argue against making the morning after pill available, a woman loses her right to her own body the moment she has sex. Given that those conservatives also tend to be against giving women access to contraceptives, the real game is taking away a woman’s autonomy in the moment she even thinks about having sex. Still, other conservatives make no exception for rape and thus take away a woman’s autonomy the moment someone else forces themselves upon her.”
Stephanie Gray Connors:
So, once again, he is hyper focused on autonomy. But then, I would ask the question. Is a pregnant woman in the situation she’s in involving just her body or someone else’s? You know, as I’ve said many times in other shows with you, you know, a woman who takes pregnancy tests and the results are negative doesn’t call an abortion clinic because it’s the negative test telling her it’s just your body. It’s only when a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, takes a test and the results are positive, that she might consider calling the abortion clinic because the positive test is telling her it’s no longer just your body.
Cy Kellett:
Wow.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
There is another body there. And so, because there’s body there, if he believes in autonomy, then the autonomy has to also apply to the pre-born child. And, what about their right to their bodily integrity and autonomy? So… The other thing, too, is, you know, when he of course, as is very common with abortion supporters… They throw in the subject of contraception and birth control as well, which is very connected to abortion. I won’t deny that. I think they’re wrong for different reasons, that one is wrong because it goes against the nature of sexual intimacy, which should be open to life and really uniting two people in a gift of fully giving and fully receiving the other. Whereas, abortion would be ending the life of someone who’s already existed.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
But, at the end of the day, from their perspective, the abortion supporting, contraception supporting person’s perspective, it’s really about removing responsibility from choices that we make. And, he’s trying to run from that and I would say we need to run towards that, that every action or inaction that we make or take has consequences. And, why is that a bad thing? We need to be willing to accept the outcomes of choices that we make and if we don’t want the outcomes that are inherently tied to the behavior, then we should not be making the behavior choice itself.
Cy Kellett:
I don’t [inaudible 00:27:34]. We’ve concluded paragraph three. There’s so much more here, but I feel like we’ve made a good beginning as far as… Almost like… I think of it as an inoculation. We need to inoculate our own minds and to the degree that we can, other minds, against euphemisms, deceptions and manipulations, because we want an honest debate on abortion. It’s not because we want to avoid an honest debate on abortion. We want an honest debate and that requires having our defenses up against dishonest means of communicating about abortion.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Absolutely. And so, that’s why I’m grateful that you… You had me on to pick this apart. Now, if only this guy would actually do a debate. Maybe we can try that.
Cy Kellett:
Well, I have a feeling you’re going to be a little busy for the next few months, but thank you for taking the time to do this with us at the beginning of this year and I hope we will get the chance to talk with you more because I am quite sincere. I think you are one of the world’s clearest communicators on this point. And so, many blessings to you, to your husband, and to the new baby in the coming months.
Stephanie Gray Connors:
Thank you. Thanks so much.
Cy Kellett:
Thanks Stephanie.
Cy Kellett:
I actually quite firmly believe this. Pro-life people want arguments. We want to have arguments that are about principles or about realities or about ideas when it comes to talking about abortion and about children in the womb and about mothers and all of that. I honestly don’t think most pro-choice advocates want those arguments. They want to tell you that you’re only pro-life because you hate women or they want to create media that just marginalizes pro-life people. And, it’s the case that pop culture is more pro-choice than it is pro-life. You’re much more likely when you’re watching the Oscars to get a pro-choice speech than a pro-life speech. As a matter of fact, has there ever been a pro-life speech there?
Cy Kellett:
There’s reasons for this and maybe we’ll cover that in future episodes. But the end result of it is that the pro-life person, in a world of pop culture media, is made to feel more and more marginalized, and that’s by design. I think that’s by design and the only way we can cut through all of that is being very precise with our language and making clear, cogent arguments on behalf of the most innocent and the most helpless, those in the womb.
Cy Kellett:
We’ll be doing more of that throughout the year. If you’ve got ideas on how we might do that or if you want to challenge ideas that you’ve heard here, Focus at Catholic dot com is our website. We love to get your emails. Focus at Catholic dot com. If you’re listening [inaudible 00:30:01] Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, wherever folks get podcasts that way, if you’re… You can just subscribe and you’ll get updates when new episodes are available. If you’re watching on YouTube, go ahead and like and subscribe at the bottom. That helps us to grow the podcast. And, if you’d be willing to support us financially, we do need financial support to keep doing what we’re doing here. You can just go to givecatholic.com. Put a little note there that says it’s for Catholic Answers Focus.
Cy Kellett:
I’m Cy Kellett, your host. We’ll see you next time, God willing, right here on Catholic Answers Focus.