It is easy to identify that ineffective conversations often happen when people have a hard time relating to a subject.
For some conversations, your mind is made up about how you feel and when someone tries to infringe on your right to that opinion, there is only one route the conversation is headed, and it’s in a negative direction where feelings get hurt and there is no middle ground to be found.
Abortion is one of those topics that is hard to relate to.
It’s a touchy subject that is grounds for an immediate conversation shutdown, and understandably so. The two main opinions on the subject are such polar opposites that it’s hard to say anything without disagreeing.
The beliefs that make someone pro-life or pro-choice are too fundamental to who they are as a person and too deep-rooted for one emotionally-charged conversation to change. But the thing about this subject is that it has to be talked about.
Abortion is something that happens all the time and it finds its place in two even touchier subjects: politics and religion.
It’s naïve to think we can just brush it to the side and leave it undiscussed. It’s also naïve to think that we can have good conversations if we’re completely focused on why the opposing side is so wrong.
There are similarities that get lost in the wrath of the two sides and they’re forgotten and ultimately contribute to the lack of respect and relatability between the two.
Instead of writing a tired argument about my own side’s viewpoints that everyone has heard a million times, I want to talk about these similarities. The middle ground.
Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, you believe that we should not be allowed to make decisions for other people.
On the pro-choice side, this is obvious. Taking away someone’s right to decide what they want to do with their bodies is a despicable and unjustified use of the government’s power.
On the pro-life side, the fetus at hand is a person who should be allowed to have some say in whether their life is over or if they get a chance in the world. They obviously can’t do anything about it, so giving the mother the choice to decide that fate for them is inhumane.
Whichever way legislation decides to rule on this topic, this fundamental right of people being able to make decisions for themselves is violated on the end of someone’s side.
Another common ground between someone who is pro-life and someone who is pro-choice is a strong feeling of being judged for what you believe.
A pro-life arguer knows that anyone who has the opposing view from them thinks they’re an idiot for thinking that a fetus is a living human being and it is murder to abort it. People call them close-minded for believing that their religious views should have any hand in legislation that governs so many people on the basis of a religion that not all the governed share.
On the pro-choice side, you know that any pro-life believer thinks that you are disgusting for having the idea of killing a fetus when there are options for a newborn baby you can’t take care of, like adoption and foster care.
And what argument is there to make against any of these judgments when your own side is completely based on the passion of what you believe and your own life and experiences?
There is a need for a more constructive dialogue instead of the destructive one we are so used to.
There is a necessity for a common understanding to establish the good conversation that we are currently so far away from — and it starts with a middle ground.
