Equipped for Life Podcast

Josh and Rachel look at a research article published by the Association for Psychological Science (APS) in 2019,  Perspective Taking and Self-Persuasion: Why "Putting Yourself in Their Shoes" Reduces Openness to Attitude Change,  and discuss how it should influence the way we make pro-life arguments. Standford Business article about the study: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-putting-your...

Josh Brahm was invited to address a group of future clergy as well as some of those who train clergy at a Lutheran Seminary during his last speaking tour in Canada. After sharing a little about his background and the focus of Equal Rights Institute, Josh focused his talk on what pastors and priests can do to prevent abortions in their congregations. He then took questions from the audience. Four m...

Josh stumbled upon a pro-choice Reddit thread reacting to Tim's Autumn in the Sovereign Zone article and decided to get Tim and Rachel's spontaneous responses live on the podcast. Afterward, they talk about how to respond to people who say that it's only wrong to take Thalidomide if the mother is going to have an abortion anyway because then they're not really causing suffering to this "potential...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel respond to a pro-choice video on illegal abortions in El Salvador. Click here to watch the pro-choice video we're responding to. The show begins with a discussion of our favorite Pixar movies. If you want to get straight to the main topic, you can skip to 10:23 in the episode. Apologies for occasional wonky audio in this episode. We're playing around with some new post-produc...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel answer more questions from Ian McGinniss, the president of Dukes for Life at James Madison University. Questions: 01:02: What do you guys think is the distribution of pro-choice beliefs on campus? 14:20: What is your take on the Don Marquis Future of Value Argument against abortion? 58:07: Do you think there is a way to restructure the Marquis argument into one that's more in...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel answer more questions from Ian McGinniss, the president of Dukes for Life at James Madison University. Questions: 00:00: Is A Quiet Place a pro-life movie? 02:28: What is your approach when pro-choice people say that they don't want to be forced to stay pregnant? 09:12: How did all three of you get involved in the pro-life movement? 20:24: What would you say to groups who are...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel answer questions from Ian McGinniss, the president of Dukes for Life at James Madison University. This episode includes an intro to epistemology (theory of knowledge; the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.) So this is a pretty philosophically heavy episode, but it's worth it. Just thinking about epistemology can really help you to think more cl...

Josh, Tim, Rachel, and Jacob conclude their discussion about their most common dialogue mistakes. Email us your most common dialogue mistakes so that we can talk about them on a future episode! Related Links: Timothy Brahm for the ERI Blog: Don't Dialogue Like Hamilton OR Aaron Burr Skillet: "Awake and Alive" Spotify YouTube

Josh, Tim, Rachel, and Jacob discuss their most common dialogue mistakes in this two-part series. Related Links: Equipped for Life Podcast Episode 29: How Josh Should Have Dealt with a Hostile Audience in Canada Timothy Brahm for the ERI Blog: Don't Be Too Nice Josh Brahm for the ERI Blog: When and How You Should End Unproductive Conversations

Rachel shares what happened on her recent speaking and outreach tour in Oregon and Pennsylvania, which leads into a quick impromptu discussion on which people are best to invest the most energy into talking to during outreach, the hardcore pro-choice people or people in the middle. Then the team responds to listener mail: 22:14: "Why do you sometimes describe your view that embryos are persons as...

Rachel interviews Lori Navrodtzke, a PRC counselor and Justice For All volunteer, about how to dialogue with people about abortion if they've already had one. Topics Covered: What is in a post-abortive woman's mind when she approaches a pro-life outreach table on campus? What are some signals that pro-life advocates should keep an eye out for, that might be a clue that they're talking to a post-ab...

Josh shares what happened when he gave a pro-life speech at a high school in Canada last month where three angry pro-choice girls sat in the front row and dominated the Q&A session. You'll hear how Josh actually handled it, as well as a discussion with Tim and Rachel about what Josh could have done better. If you ever plan on giving pro-life speeches, this episode will be very practically helpful...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel finish their multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. Here are the tips covered in this episode: Practical Argumentation Use links sparingly. If your argument only works if they read a long article you link to, you're doing it wrong. Summarize the thesis of what you're linking to, and the link is to back you up or give them more info if t...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode they continue a series of 35 practical tips in five categories. The episode begins with a brief discussion of Tim and Rachel's favorite podcast, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality." If you want to skip this, the substantive content begins at 10:01. Here are the...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode they continue a series of 35 practical tips in five categories. The episode begins with a brief discussion of Josh and Tim's new kittens. If you want to skip this, the substantive content begins at 09:50. Here are the tips covered in this episode: Practical Lowering Defen...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode they begin a series of 35 practical tips in five categories. Here are the tips covered in this episode: General Strategy Move to PM or in person as soon as possible, and then to Skype/in-person soon after that. Once you're in PM, get personal. Make minimal persuasion goal...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel continue a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. In this episode Tim discusses virtue-signaling. What is it? Are there different types? Are some of them actually okay? And when is it a valid or helpful accusation?

Josh, Tim, and Rachel begin a multi-part series on how to be an effective pro-life advocate on social media. They begin the series by talking about some of the obstacles that often prevent good dialogue from happening on social media, like image management. The episode begins with a discussion of our favorite Facebook pages. If you don't want to hear any of this, skip to 08:18.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel talk about how to respond to the Freakonomics argument that abortion has resulted in a drop in crime rates, as well as a new technique Josh has been using when talking to utilitarians. The episode begins with a discussion of various theories at to Rey's parentage in the Star Wars universe, in anticipation of "The Last Jedi" coming out. This discussion includes spoilers of "Th...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel respond to a bunch of listener mail questions related to the burning IVF lab thought experiment, particularly the concern that it's too easy for pro-choice people to get traction with strawmen tweets when pro-life people have to answer with longer, more thoughtful responses that fewer people will read.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel talk about their recent outreach at Davidson College, which was a particularly difficult outreach for Tim and Rachel. They discuss what made it difficult as well as share some practical tips for handling discouragement at an outreach.

Josh, Tim, and Rachel interview Casey Mattox on how students should deal with free speech violations, and responding to common arguments from typically leftists defending free speech violations. Casey Mattox joined Alliance Defending Freedom in 2009 litigating cases to protect the First Amendment rights of students and faculty at public colleges and universities across the nation. Since December 2...

Josh, Tim, and Jacob sit down to respond to more listener mail questions. Topics include pro-choice Fetus Tunnel Vision, whether or not we should allow people to "insta-correct" their views, and what to do if they say, "Let's just agree to disagree."

Josh, Tim, and Rachel sit down to discuss the James Franco/Liz Harman video about abortion that was mocked mercilessly by pro-life organizations and advocates recently. We agree with a few conservative philosophers who believe that while Harman's pro-choice argument is wrong, it's not as stupid as it sounds. We believe Harman did a bad job explaining her argument in the video. So in this episode,...

Josh, Tim, and Rachel answer your questions! Questions: This question from Ellen on the forum prompts a larger discussion of labels that pro-life and pro-choice people use for either side, what precisely is so wrong with "pro-abort," as well as labels used for the unborn: "I think a good thing to discuss on the podcast or just here on the forum is issues within the movement and how we should appro...