Dear Parishioners,

I have been reading a thought-filled book by Trent Horn called “Persuasive Pro-life: How to Talk About Our Culture’s Toughest Issue”. Trent Horn is an adjunct professor of apologetics at Holy Apostles College and a Catholic Apologist who hosts podcasts and engages people on topics of the faith. He began his career by being an evangelist for the Pro-Life Movement and this book brings together all of his experience and knowledge persuading people that an embryo is a human being that has the same rights as any other person. I think this book will be very helpful for anyone who wants to make the case for the unborn, and that’s exactly what we ought to be doing as Catholics.

One thing that I learned from this book is that when people defend the Pro-Choice position they often point to other factors for why they believe abortion should remain legal. They might bring up that the child was conceived in rape, or that the child will have a disability or that the conditions for raising the child are poor, such as if the child were raised in poverty or with only one parent. Trent Horn points out that most people would probably answer these arguments by pointing out how Pro-Life people support mothers and that we could expand aid to them. However, it is easy for Pro-Choice people to say that is not enough.

Trent Horn then gives a clever technique in his book called Trot-Out-a-Toddler. He knows that the more distracted we get with side issues, it takes away focus from our main claim: an embryo is a child and therefore has an inalienable right to life. If this really is a human life, we should not be able to kill it because of how it was conceived or how it is going to grow up. To make this clear to people, he takes whatever example is given and then applies that logic to a toddler. For example: Would you kill a toddler conceived in rape or who has to grow up in poverty? Most people would agree that that would be monstrous, but a Pro-Choice person would then say that an embryo is very different. The Pro-Life person can then ask them to explain, why these two lives are different. And then we are back on topic: is it really a child or not? That’s the real discussion we should be having.

If you find learning arguments to defend the truth interesting, I highly recommend his book. May we as a Church continue to stand strong on this issue and continue to defend the most defenseless among us.

God bless!

Fr. Carter