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Here is the conclusion of my interview with Stephen Wagner concerning his book, Common Ground Without Compromise: 25 Questions to Create Dialogue on Abortion. Though the book is available on Amazon, we encourage you to support Steve's work at Stand to Reason by ordering through their website. Part 1 can be read here.

How has the media affected our perception of abortion in America?

The media has led us to believe that most people are pro-choice.  In my experience, most people are much more nuanced than that.  Many see themselves as not fitting into either the pro-choice or pro-life camps.  If forced by an opinion poll, they’ll choose, but if given the chance to explain, they are conflicted.  Others just haven’t thought much about abortion and many are just confused.

In addition, the media gives us the sense that we’re always discussing abortion.  That’s the most detrimental thing, because I think it turns people off to creating real, productive dialogue.  One might say, “If everyone’s always discussing it, why do I need to weigh in?  Aren’t people tired of the topic?”  Some people are tired of the topic.  But not because we’ve really done it justice. 

I think the media treatment of abortion has also led people to believe that the abortion debate is dominated by angry activists.  Although these activists may be the most vocal and the most concerned, the most productive abortion debate happens around dinner tables, on college campuses, and at the coffee house.  Abortion isn’t just a theoretical issue people debate.  It’s about real decisions people are making today.  And those decisions are either well-informed or poorly-informed.  If we create a better dialogue as a culture, I think the benefit is women and men making better decisions about abortion.

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One of your final chapters offers questions for pro-choice advocates to ask pro-lifers. You claim "they encourage us to examine our inner attitudes and external personas." (p100) What is it about the typical pro-life attitude that needs to be confronted? Pro-life activists frequently make claims they can’t defend and lack tact in their discussion of pro-choice concerns.  Chapter 11 focuses on common pro-choice concerns and asks, aren’t these concerns “human” concerns?  Can’t we agree with the pro-choice advocate on her concern for the poor and the difficult circumstances of unplanned pregnancy?

Pro-choice advocates may see much of the book as coming from a pro-life perspective (it’s inevitable, since I am pro-life).  I attempted in this chapter to adopt the pro-choice perspective and look critically at pro-life arguments and tactics through pro-choice eyes.  I do this as a matter of course in my conversations, so it was a natural component to include in a book about trying to agree with the other side.

At Stand to Reason's website you've provided study guides for both pro-choice and pro-life advocates to help them clarify the arguments for their position. Doesn't helping pro-choice advocates improve their arguments work against the pro-life cause?

The study guides encourage both sides first to clarify their own arguments and then to look at the best arguments on the other side.  This is the healthiest way to engage in dialogue about our beliefs with ourselves and with others.  So, I see both study guides as a service to both pro-choice and pro-life advocates to help them think more clearly.  I don’t see how helping pro-choice advocates think more clearly can possibly harm the pro-life cause.  It’s just goodwill to encourage them to look at their own position first.  Perhaps the fact that I’m tired of hearing arguments like “you’re a man, so shut up” also motivates me but I genuinely want to help the pro-choice advocate think more deeply about their position.    

I’m not afraid of pro-choice arguments.  The truth about abortion and the unborn will win the day, if it’s looked at carefully.  So, I say, evaluate the strongest reasons on both sides of the debate.  There’s no danger in that.  Both pro-life and pro-choice advocates should do this.  Far from harming the pro-life cause, these guides get people thinking critically about their beliefs. 

I suppose it’s possible that some pro-choice advocates will become more convinced of their beliefs, because they find in the guide intellectually sophisticated ways of expressing those beliefs.  But if they’re truly open to reconsidering their pro-choice position, they’ll honestly look also at the best arguments for the pro-life position, as I’ve suggested in the guide.  Then it’s the pro-life community’s responsibility to make sure our arguments are truly persuasive.  And if our best arguments don’t persuade, they might not be very good after all.  Yet, our arguments are very good and persuasive…to the open heart. 

Underneath it all, there’s more here than the arguments.  When pro-choice advocates reject our best arguments, I suspect it’s the emotional and spiritual aspects of the person that are making it difficult for them to change their minds.  Seeking common ground in the conversation gives more opportunity for those emotional and spiritual elements to breathe and gives each of us space to attend to them.

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Stephen Wagner speaks to and trains a variety of audiences on pro-life and bioethics issues as part of the ministry of Stand to Reason. His new book, Common Ground Without Compromise: 25 Questions to Create Dialogue on Abortion, challenges advocates on both sides of the abortion issue to have more respectful and fruitful conversations. Though the book is available on Amazon, we encourage you to support Steve's work at Stand to Reason by ordering through their website. The conclusion of the interview will be posted on Thursday.

As the title indicates, the point of your book is to build common ground between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. Many people on both sides of the issue simply want to persuade their opponents- why should they be interested in finding common ground?

I don’t see a person who disagrees with me primarily as a sort of potential convert.  I see her as a human being.  Human beings deserve to be treated with respect; they deserve to be heard.  It’s troubling that some Christians take the Great Commission as a directive to think of non-Christians as “gospel fodder,” people who are only valuable if converted.  Greg Koukl at Stand to Reason coined that term and I’ve found it helpful in my thinking about the abortion debate.  I am a pro-life advocate, but I don’t see the pro-choice advocate simply as a future notch in my pro-life belt. 

Now, is it important to persuade people of the pro-life position?  I believe the pro-life position is true, and surely it’s vital to help people come to see it as true.  But if I don’t come with an attitude of listening and appreciating this human being as a fellow truth seeker, I’ll miss the forest for the trees…or the human for the ideas.  Since persuasion is important, though, common ground is all the more important.  It’s diplomatic common sense.  Take the pro-life volunteers I trained for a recent outreach in Arizona.  As we shared stories of our interactions, many of the volunteers shared about how common ground helped them move the dialogue forward to discuss disagreements in a productive way.  In the book I picture common ground as the fuel in a car.  You’ll need it at the beginning of a conversation.  And you’ll need to refuel with common ground along the way in order to keep the conversation moving.

Early on in the book you state, "I believe that you and I are both seeking truth, so we have at least one item of common ground." (p17) I suspect that some pro-lifers won't like this because that they believe pro-choicers are more interested in convenience than truth. Why should we believe people we disagree with are interested in seeking truth? Do you honestly believe every person you talk with is seeking truth?

Anyone who’s spent even a few hours talking to college students, or people of any age for that matter, knows that many people value convenience or pleasure or entertainment more than the search for truth.  That’s uncontroversial and I’d be a fool to claim otherwise.  I think it’s also uncontroversial, though, that every human seeks truth on some level.  You can be just as certain that the college student who seems to only care about sex or entertainment also cares deep in his soul about knowing what’s true.  No one wakes up in the morning and says, “I’d really like to find someone who will deceive me today.”  People care about not being deceived, and conversely, they care about knowing the truth.  Our job, as those who believe there’s truth about abortion, is to help people bring their innate love for truth to the surface, so they can fix their conscious gaze on it and evaluate their beliefs.

You spend most of your time in the book exploring 25 questions you believe will help build common ground. Why are questions so important in this endeavor?

It’s interesting that you would use a question to ask why questions are so important! 

Questions are the only way that dialogue happens.  It’s the way we signal to others that we want to hear their opinion.  It’s also one way to signal that we are positioning ourselves as partners rather than enemies (although this also requires asking the question with a certain kind of attitude).  I framed the content of the book in a series of questions because I wanted to help the reader see in a tangible way how to start a conversation and how to keep it productive.  Asking people what they think and why is much more likely to help them change their minds than telling them they are wrong.

The first question you pose in an effort to build common ground is "What do you think about late-term abortion?" You cite a 2003 Gallup poll that suggests "68% of Americans oppose abortion in the second trimester and 84% oppose it in the third trimester." (p39) Why do you think these polls statistics are so high?

Your question is a great one…to ask anyone we’re in dialogue with.  “If you are against late-term abortion, or think it should be illegal…why?”  I think responses to that question are varied.  Many people just think the unborn is a baby at this point.  Some people think the fetus in the second or third trimester looks like older human beings.  Essentially, “It looks like me, so I’m repulsed by killing it.”  Others cite the fact that the fetus likely has higher cortical activity in the late second and third trimester.  So, this question gets us quickly back to the main issue in the abortion debate: Is the unborn a human being who has the same rights as the rest of us?  Many say “yes” in the last half of the pregnancy.

You note that we often hear this common sentiment presented in the media: "The majority of Americans are 'pro-choice' and oppose restrictions on abortion." (p62) Do you believe there is a 'pro-choice' bias in the media?

I’m not sure I’d put it that way.  I think the media’s treatment of the abortion issue shows a “pro-shallow” bias and a “pro-controversy” bias.  People in the media usually have only seconds to communicate ideas and must use sound bites.  Plus, on television, a simplistic representation of extremes plays better than complex dialogue.   So, it’s easy to report poll results, but thorough analysis takes too long.  Neil Postman was right when he criticized the television medium as being intrinsically an entertainment medium that makes it difficult to get accurate facts.  People in the media could minimize this liability, though, by only publicizing polls that ask specific questions about specific abortions at specific times in pregnancy.  Only then can we really understand what people think.

But the fault is not all the media’s.  Pollsters typically serve up polls that ask very vague questions about whether people are for or against abortion, pro-life or pro-choice, for or against Roe v. Wade.  As I explain in the book, the polls rarely define what all of these terms and court decisions mean, so the poll results actually portray an inaccurate picture of public opinion.  But when the media publicizes this inaccurate picture, it becomes a part of our collective consciousness about public opinion on abortion.  We come to believe that what the media reported is “just the way it is.” 

The most serious problem with polls and the media, though, is not the polls or the media.  It’s us, the viewers.  If many of us believe these shallow and inaccurate public opinion polls, it’s our own fault.  We should be more careful.