LISTENER MAIL: 6 Tips for Arguing with Analogies Clearly

I got a wonderful email from Andres in Santa Barbara who was in a dialogue about abortion and used an analogy about being hooked up to a machine in order to demonstrate that your personhood isn't based on your dependance. But the person he was talking to retorted, "Are you comparing a woman to a machine?!" Andres wants to know what I would suggest we do to avoid throwing people off when the analogies we use seem, at a surface level, to demean pregnant women.

In the video, I offer six tips for making clear analogies and responding to people who continue to misinterpret them.

1: Make sure you're communicating clearly.

2: Narrate the debate.

3: Suggest a golden rule for dialogue.

4: Explain that analogies are just that...analogies!

5: Explain that pro-choice people would be wise to not throw out all analogies.

6: Determine the right time to politely end the conversation.

Find more resources about bodily rights argument for abortion at:

http://prolifepodcast.net/tag/bodily-rights