Conflation

One of the things that disturbs me, particularly when I waste too much time on social media, is the problem of conflation.

This arose this week when I was accused of hatred because I disagreed with someone, for example; and that seems to me to be a very common form of the problem. It contributes significantly to the polarisation and tribal hostility that is a feature of the culture wars. 

In the wake of the reversal of Roe v Wade, it has been very evident in discussions (or to be more accurate diatribes) about abortion; it is certainly a major feature of the continuing trans activist v gender critical disputes and so on. The claim is that if you don't accept my view of the situation, you must be motivated by hatred. This demonises the other, destroys any chance of meaningful dialogue and drives people further into their bunkers. 

I find this particularly odd, as I tend to like the company of, and conversation with, people who see the world differently from me. 

Many of my friends think that I am wrong to believe that the law should not sanction people killing unborn human beings; further they think that my formulation of the issue in that way is wrong too - and that my erroneous thinking will lead to great suffering and evil if enacted. But then, I think the same of their views: that to regard unborn human life as of less value, and therefore disposable, leads to great suffering and evil.  

But that doesn't mean that they have to attribute evil intention to me, nor that I have to attribute evil intention to them. In fact, no good purpose is served by such attribution. And it certainly doesn't mean that I have to dislike (or worse, hate) them; nor the other way around.

The conflation of disagreement and dislike is only one example, of course. With regard to the two topics mentioned, there is a tendency, on both sides of each debate, to muddy the waters by conflating lots of different things into one group. This is amplified, of course by sloganeering and the hashtag culture: which inevitably leads to over-simplification and conflation.

For example the more extreme end of the pro-choice lobby broadcasts that anyone opposed to abortions, wants to ban the treatment of ectopic pregnancy and thus kill women. This approach is designed more to fan the fuels of outrage on their own side of the argument, than to convince those who disagree with them (who, naturally enough, do not recognise themselves in such a mis-characterisation of their position).

And some of the nutters on the fringe of the pro-life lobby broadcast that pro-choicers want to kill children up to (and probably beyond) birth.

Likewise, some of the more militant trans rights activists say that opposing any man's ability to self-identify into (for example) a female rape crisis centre is to deny trans people's right to exist.

And on the other side of the debate, the more extreme gender critical feminists take the most egregious examples of bad behaviour by their opponents and attribute it to what they call trans ideology; and attribute that to all of their opponents.

And as I have mentioned, the result of this type of approach, practiced by those on all sides, is to drive people further into their bunkers, and to assure them of their own moral superiority and the idiocy or (more probably) malice of those who disagree with them. And we all pay a high price for such polarisation.  

The alternative, I suggest, is that we listen to each other, and try to represent what those we disagree with are actually saying; articulating the nuances and the details honestly, rather than seeking to stoke outrage by conflating them and overstating them. I have blogged before about one experiment in this regard, and the very positive outcomes. Harder work, and more boring, perhaps; but much more conducive of understanding, of generating possible ways forward, and of being able to live together with some good will.

Seeking to understand

I blogged a while ago (here in fact) about a meeting of coaches and facilitators convened by Nancy Kline who are interested (and qualified) in her Time to Think approach.  The next meeting is coming up next week, and I am looking forward to it with great interest.

One of the issues we have agreed to explore is whether and how a real commitment to listening and seeking to understand might transform conflict-fraught conversations.

We all know that there are some subjects on which people hold such strong views that a conversation with someone who holds the opposite view is highly likely to degenerate into a point-scoring pseudo-attempt to convince the other of one's own rightness. I say pseudo-attempt, because the likelihood of such an outcome is extremely low, and is therefore, I suspect, not the real goal of such conversations.

So we are going to have a couple of difficult conversations, between people holding opposing views on some fraught topics; with Nancy structuring and facilitating, and with the agreement that each participant is seeking not to convince, but to understand, the other.

The topics are Brexit and abortion; so you can see what I mean by fraught topics.

We will then, of course, discuss what we have learned from the experiment, and whether there is any value in such an approach; and (I expect) how we might use the emergent learning in our professional practice.  That last point is the one I am most curious about; I am sure that there will be positive learning from the experience, but it is not yet clear to me how that may be relevant to my practice.

I'll also be particularly interested in how the emotional dynamic of these conversations goes. Typically, when people feel passionately strongly about something, and discuss it with someone who takes the opposing view and doesn't budge (and we are not expecting movement, though of course that is also a theoretical possibility) emotions run high.  My guess is that if one feels truly listened to and understood, even if the other person continues to oppose, the emotional temperature may remain a lot cooler.


The other thing that intrigues me is that I imagine (though i may be wrong here) that there will be a significant majority of the group on one side of the argument in each case; and i am wondering how that will affect subsequent discussion and indeed subsequent relationships within the group.

All in all, it will be very interesting; and I will report back in due course.

On the 50th Anniversary of the Abortion Act

Marble Arch lit up by Life to mark the anniversary

People sometimes assume that I am pro-life because I am Catholic. In fact, it might be more accurate to put that the other way around. In my late teens and early twenties, the time when one is questioning such things with particular intensity, the Catholic Church's clear and consistent pro-life position was one of the things that helped convince me that this was my spiritual home.

My pro-life position, then, has two main roots: one practical, one philosophical.  The practical one was witnessing one of my sisters being pregnant at a relatively young age and in very inauspicious circumstances. That was in 1969, the year after abortion was partially de-criminalised. So my nephew was an early candidate for abortion - and I have always been quite clear that ending his life would have been the wrong thing to do (not least for his mother, as things turned out, of course).

On the philosophical level, it seems to me that human rights are universal or they are nothing. Of these rights, the right to life is clearly foundational: without that, no other right has any meaning. Once we take it upon ourselves to say certain categories of human beings do not have the right to life, whether because of age, disability, the circumstances of their conception, or any other reason, we have assumed to ourselves a position of power that is untenable and, I think, corrupting. History is rife with examples.

The first training I had in non-directional counselling was with Oxford Nightline, when I was an undergraduate. It was the approach taken to all the issues that students might present with, except suicide. With suicide, we were not non-directional: all our efforts were to keep the student from ending his or her life; confidentiality no longer applied - a second volunteer would call the emergency services whilst the first kept the student talking, and so on.

And rightly so: somebody's life is at stake. Moreover, we recognise that the desire to commit suicide is, more often than not, a passing one; but a successful suicide is irreversible. 

I believe similar considerations also apply to abortion. If one considers Kubler-Ross' research, and the transition curve, we are compelling women to make an irreversible choice at a particular moment, when they are going through the emotionally charged experience of coming to terms with an unwanted pregnancy. We know that the way she will react will change over time - but the nature of the choice demands a quick decision. Such a decision may well not be the one she would make given more time and more support.

Of course, I do not condemn any woman who has made that choice; any more than I would condemn anyone driven to attempt suicide. But in both cases I would see it as a tragic choice, one to be avoided, not promoted.

And I do blame those who promote abortion through lies; both the active lies of the abortion industry and the colluding lies of their cheer-leaders in other spheres of public life. By active lies, I mean lies like Marie Stopes promoting itself as supporting women in their choice, when in fact their staff are on a bonus scheme to push women in one direction: the one that contributes to MSI's bottom line. Lies like denying that the unborn child is a human being, flying in the face of science. And lies like claiming that pro-life prayer groups are harassing women in Ealing, when despite having two cameras trained on them, there is no evidence of their having done so.  Their crime, rather, is to offer women a real choice, as these women testify: 

By collusive lies, I mean things like the BBC, commissioning a poll on public opinions, and then suppressing the fact that the public does not favour de-criminalisation, and only quoting the results that favour the BBC's agenda of liberalisation. And the BBC dropping a woman who chose not to abort her baby with Downs from a programme, and steadfastly refusing to interview women such as those who feature in the video above, who have been helped by pro-life organisations. 

I also mean things like the NHS, which refers to an unborn child as a baby, when it is wanted, but as 'a pregnancy' when describing abortion. Surely the nature of the being under discussion doesn't change depending on our attitude towards it? This is an Orwellian use of language.

I mean things like ideologues imposing radical pro-abortion agendas on organisations they lead, without consultation of their membership; whether that is Colleges of health professionals, or Amnesty International, which has apparently spent more on abortion campaigning in Ireland than on the causes its founders and members signed up to.

Abortion, of course, does not address the many serious and challenging issues that some women face. Indeed, it provides a short cut that makes it easier to ignore them. Perhaps the most damning indictment of all is that abortion is used by pedophiles, rapists, incestuous relations, and abusers to cover their crimes (as in Rotherham, for example). To its shame  MSI carries out hundreds of abortions on girls under 16 without any referrals for safeguarding.

That is why I not only oppose abortion, but also support those who work to offer real support to women in crisis pregnancies; and why I am so proud of my daughter Clare, who works for Life (the second speaker on this clip).

A World Without Down's?

I was very moved by Sally Phillips' documentary on Down's Syndrome and pre-natal screening this week: A World Without Down's. 

In the first instance, I was shocked by my own prejudice. I like to think of myself (who doesn't?) as without prejudice, but I noticed a small but discernible visceral reaction to the physical appearance of Olly, Sally's son, who has Down's. 

I was quickly won over, of course, by his infectious personality; and it made me reflect that I know nobody with Down's, and that my life is the poorer as a result. I know some people - including family members - with varying degrees of autism, and am aware how that has resulted in my being fully comfortable with such people.  But, as I say, I was shocked by my own visceral prejudice, based purely on unfamiliarity.

I was also profoundly moved by the interview with the young mother who had terminated her pregnancy at 25 weeks on learning that her baby (probably) had Down's. Her description of the moment when she could feel her baby moving within her, then it was injected in its heart, and then it stopped moving was terribly upsetting - not least for her.

To me, it seemed to cut through some of the easy rhetoric about 'My body, my choice.' For it was clearly not only her body that was at issue here: the heart that was injected and stopped was not her heart. Perhaps that was compounded by the fact that my daughter is currently expecting a baby.

But this notion of autonomous choice is very dear to us as a society. Sarah Ditum's review of the programme in the New Statesman exemplifies this. To say that Sally Phillips' programme was 'anti-choice' is enough to damn it, in Ditum's view.

However I want to think a little more about this notion of choice.  On the one hand, it seems very atomised. Each individual mother making a choice to terminate a Down's baby has a cumulative effect that reaches beyond them: that was the thrust of Phillips' concerns, though she herself was careful not to actually contradict the choice mantra, in the programme.  But the programme raised the question: who do we think is worthy to live in our society?  And it is not just about people with Down's but also autism (as pre-natal screening for autism is also nearly with us).

I think that the world would be a poorer place if we eliminate all those who are markedly different, or different in ways that 'we' find uncomfortable to deal with. Yet that is the foreseeable consequence of the sum of the individual choices that mothers are likely to make (as Iceland demonstrates). And there are other consequences too: as one mother put it on Twitter: 'We try so hard for inclusion/acceptance & NIPT makes it harder. That our kids are only here b/c tests failed?'

There is another aspect of choice that I think worthy of reflection, too. We talk of 'informed' choice; but as Sally made clear, no amount of information can tell you the reality of having a child with Down's; and still less how you will in fact respond to that reality. So the choice is inevitably made on the basis of assumptions, and as we heard very clearly in the programme, fears and prejudices.

Further, thinking of Kubler-Ross' research, and the transition curve, we are compelling women to make that choice at a particular moment, when they are going through the emotionally charged experience of learning that their child has Down's. But we know that the way she will react will change over time - but the nature of the choice demands a quick decision. Such a decision may well not be the one she would make given more time and more support.

That is why we do not offer people who are attempting suicide the choice of a quick and easy way to do so: we recognise that the choice to commit suicide is very often one that is made at a particular moment, and that with help and support the individual will be glad not to have been able to act on that choice. For, as with abortion, it is an irreversible one.

So am I anti-choice?  Well, I am anti- some choices. As we all are. We don't say of (say) bullying behaviour that 'it may be wrong for you, but you can't judge other people.'  We recognise that bullying behaviour is wrong, not just for me, but for everyone. The degree of subjective responsibility may of course be mitigated by particular circumstances, but the behaviour is still wrong and harmful.

Further, I believe that choices made from fear and based on partial knowledge and prejudice are likely to be less positive and life-affirming than choices that spring from love and courage.

So, of course, we cannot and should not pass judgment on the woman who shared her story of terminating her pregnancy at 25 weeks.  But I believe that objectively, that was a wrong thing to do - and a wrong choice for her to be offered.

This is a complex and fraught area: but I am grateful for Sally Phillips' powerful and thought-provoking programme for making me reflect more on it.

And I, for one, don't want to see a World Without Down's.