More compelling to whom? They’re more compelling to you, since you accept all the premises. In any case, it is unclear what conceding assumptions has (in general) to do with how compelling an argument is. Perhaps you and John do not know any good pro-life arguments that do not make use of revealed premises, but they do exist.

“having conceded the centrality of individual autonomy with appeals to rights theories, pro-lifers are no more likely to persuade those on the pro-choice side, as they have already admitted the fundamental assumption that pro-choicers use to defend their position as the morally superior one. Once pro-lifers have allowed the debate to be defined in terms of choice vs. coercion, or the individual vs. oppressive society, winning over people, especially those in the “persuadable” middle, will become harder, not easier.”

With all due respect, this is absurd. The idea that there is something like a right to choose that is relevant to the abortion debate is simply non-sense: no one thinks that a woman has the right to choose to do things with her body that violate other people’s rights. And one can give (relatively) compelling and convincing arguments that unborn human beings are things that have rights, including the right to life. I know both of these things from experience. The people that are difficult to convince are not the people who believe in rights but the utilitarians and the relativists. The reason pro-lifers lose debates is more often than not their ignorance of the best “secular” arguments in favor of their position, not because the best secular arguments are bad ones.

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a very well reasoned argument against slavery.

But some things argue themselves. Blessed Theresa of Calcutta by herself argued against all manner of evil, and she did so rarely by uttering a word. John Paul II was probably one of the great philosophers of last century but his life itself was a better argument for the things he believed in.

And finally (has it been so long, or are people’s memories so short), what is attractive about Ron Paul if not his humility? He doesn’t engage in verbal sword play, or delve into deep libertarian minutiae. The child who can see the emperor is naked would likely be a better emperor.

People are rational creatures, but they are emotional creatures too. Even Mortimer Adler recognized this when he said there were three steps to presenting an argument (I forgot one, but the other two were logos and pathos). The first step is “why should I care”? It is reason but with a strong dose of emotion as it must be personal. Then “why should I listen to you?” – why are you an expert and actually know something and not just selling something or a charlatan? After getting over these, then present your argument.

The problem with “the bible thumpers” is they are more like Jimmy Swaggart (who wouldn’t even recognize the authority of his own church to discipline him when he was caught) and less like Blessed Theresa.

Shame is perhaps the most powerful argument, but few are those who can credibly argue it.

Just curious…

I entirely agree that the pro-life movement has been very ill served by basing it primary argument on rights. A large part of the problem is that most modern Christians (and not just nominal Christians, but sincere Christians who consider themselves conservatives) are actually good little Enlightenment liberals with a few principled exceptions that the plain teaching of the Bible won’t allow them to abandon. Gay marriage for example.

What is needed is a re-illiberalization of Christianity. That the dominant paradigm is liberalism is evidenced by the fact that your liberal (in the modern sense) posters can’t even conceive of anything else. They take it for granted.

kent, does the Bible say anything about individual autonomy in the political realm? (Autonomy is a broad topic with an array of meanings so I don’t want to over generalize.) In the same way that liberalism is taken for granted today, it was equally off the radar screen when the Bible was written. To attempt to apply modern concepts to the Bible and find justifications there for them is fraught with difficulty.

and

“whether it made sense for pro-lifers to use philosophical language that already conceded basic claims of individual autonomy”

both imply, in slightly different ways, that individual autonomy is not a Christian value … or perhaps only that it is not the central Christian value.

In the political realm, I’m wondering what value is more central than respect for individual autonomy, from a Christian perspective. Obviously in a purely introspective / prayerful sense, individual autonomy is subservient to the power/majesty/goodness of the deity. But taking that sort of concern into the political realm seems like a very bad idea indeed.

I’m trying to recall enough of my Aquinas and/or Augustine to guess what you might be thinking of as a more basic foundation of Christian political thought. I’m looking for something that would both be true to the Christian tradition and yet also reasonable considering American traditions of disestablishment and enlightenment.

Or is the point that (properly understood) Christians, as such, are always at war with America (properly understood)? A permanent “Christ against Culture” paradigm?

“Do not violate the integrity of other persons; they are children of God and made in His image” seems like a pretty reasonable statement of basic Christian principle to me, at least in the political realm. Something like that principle seems to underlie the universal condemnation of torture, war, the death penalty, etc. Then the abortion question becomes whether and when a fetus counts as a person. Whether we have common ground as to answers on that question, at least we have reasonable common ground as to the question(s).

Don’t we? What am I missing?

The law is what it is: Casey prohibits states from imposing an undue burden. As a matter of practice, the ease with which abortions can be obtained varies dramatically from state to state, but I have seen virtually no data on the number of women carrying to term in (say) South Dakota who would have preferred to have an abortion.

Against that baseline, what is it you’re trying to achieve? Legal changes, such as a federal Constitutional amendment establishing personhood at conception, or more favorable Supreme Court jurisprudence? Social changes, such that women will choose not to obtain abortions? Or something else?