The Unanswerable Question?
Seeking Intellectual Honesty
This summer my wife, Aubrie, and I cringed along with everyone else watching the Progressive class dodge the simplest of questions: “What is a woman?”
We were equally amazed and dismayed by the mental gymnastics displayed by those Matt Walsh approached. Who knew so many could so effortlessly vault over basic biology to swing about on twisted wires of psychology, partisan nearsightedness, and really big words that don’t mean a whole lot?
It was nevertheless clear that this question provides more than comic relief. It is a powerful litmus test for intellectual integrity. After all, it takes a certain level of party-line fervor to reject reality.
At Created Equal, we know that we must be willing to speak to anyone anywhere about abortion. But we also know that the most effective conversations are with people open to truth. And so I started to wonder: Is there an equally simple question related to abortion that could signal intellectual honesty?
“Yeah, but what kind?”
It’s been clear for years that abortion aficionados, like puberty-blocking pill pushers, display discomfort with truths once universally acknowledged. The notion that a living organism must belong to the same species as her parents is not even the stuff of Bio 101. Like the understanding that boys are boys and girls are girls, this concept is worked out by children in that storied land—the elementary school playground—which lacks the political pull, partisan pride needed to bury truth in complexity and nuance no one can dig through.
No child observing a pregnant mother will wonder what species of creature lies within her womb—unless, that is, she is dragged by a pink-hatted parent to an equally storied land, that of the so-called “Women’s March,” where, as Walsh discovered, no one can say for sure what it means to belong to the class that the marchers are alleged to be marching for. Even normally clear-thinking children can have their vision blurred by all that pink.
Anyone who’s had a conversation about abortion with supporters of it knows what I’m talking about. The obstruction of reality usually goes something like this.
Pro-lifer: “It’s wrong to kill babies.”
Abortion supporter: “It’s not a baby. It’s an embryo (or fetus).”
My usual response to this is seeking clarification: “Yeah, but what kind of embryo are we talking about?” The expected answer is a simple one—spoiler alert: a human embryo.
After watching Walsh’s documentary, I realized this line of dialogue, too, provides a litmus test. And so this season of college outreach, I’ve been testing a question. It’s neither novel nor unique to me. But it is simple. Here’s how it goes. I point to a picture of a developing embryo. Then I ask:
“What kind of embryo is this?”
Now, I’m not asking if it’s right or wrong to kill that embryo. I’m not at this point even asking if she’s alive. What I’m offering is a chance for the other person to demonstrate whether they’re open to elementary truths.
After all, when you ask “What is a woman?” you’re not really after the answer. Nature has already provided that. Rather, you want to know whether you’re speaking to a truth-seeker or blind believer. Some answers might be simple. Others might be clunky. But either way, straightforward answers often signal intellectual honesty. By contrast, those who pontificate about nuance often care more for curated creeds than truth. Stammering and scalp-scratching—when the question is an obvious one—suggests thick partisan shades have distorted vision.
The same is true when I ask abortion supporters to identify the kind of embryo carried by a pregnant woman.
Refusing to Answer
This question alone might not flip someone from pro- to anti-abortion. But it will point to how deep the dogmatism goes.
The intellectually honest abortion supporter will say, “It’s a human embryo,” before explaining why this doesn’t really matter. This is a dispiriting response, but at least it’s honest. Perhaps they don’t yet recognize what it means to be a human embryo—that she is already a whole (though immature) human being. But at least they’ve acknowledged the modest truth of the kind of being in question.
So they might not yet say, “Yes, she’s a human being and it’s wrong to kill her,” but at least they can recognize that we’re talking about something belonging to our own species and not some other bizarre category. In other words, they may not yet admit the emperor is naked, but at least they’re not going to detail to you all of the purples and golds they allegedly see clinging to his form.
Compare that to a conversation I had last week at Columbus State Community College.
Is dialogue still possible? Yes. And so this kind of response should not shut down conversation. But I knew in that moment there was a massive roadblock in the way. The refusal to answer such a simple question suggests the person is unwilling to fairly engage. The matter has been settled, evidence is irrelevant, and the mind has been closed, thank you very much.
Here’s another recent example, this time from Otterbein University.
Same problem.
First she deflects, “Does it matter?” But when that doesn’t work, she pleads total ignorance: “I don’t f*****g know.”
Really? Are we to believe someone in advanced education has missed all of the elementary truths of biology?
I think she knows. But that advanced education has brought along with it something else—blind faith in mainstream dogma, which includes support for abortion.
Head + Heart
Someone in this state can still be awakened to reality. But it will likely take more than continual appeals to the intellect. When the doors to the mind have been locked tight, it’s best not to just keep knocking in the same place.
Instead, the effective defender should circumvent the mind and go straight to the heart. This is not easily done with words or pictures of living embryos. But it is very effectively accomplished with pictures of preborn babies killed by abortion.
This is not a fallacious appeal to pity. Pictures of abortion victims present objective evidence to be intellectually assessed. But they also speak to the heart. And while many can effectively switch off their mind, it’s harder to kick against the pricks to the heart.
To Be Continued
Our fall campus outreach has just begun. I’ll have many more opportunities to ask abortion supporters to identify the kind of embryo in a pregnant mother. I look forward to sharing with you their answers.
Until then, try this question out for yourself. Get some Created Equal brochures. Point to the pictures inside and ask, “What kind of embryo is this?”
Let me know what you hear!