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Persuasive Pro Life: How to Talk about Our Culture's Toughest Issue 1st Edition Paperback – September 28, 2014
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length335 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherCatholic Answers Press
- Publication dateSeptember 28, 2014
- Dimensions5.28 x 1.06 x 7.99 inches
- ISBN-101941663044
- ISBN-13978-1941663042
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Editorial Reviews
Review
I am so grateful for this book! It brilliantly combines reason and compassion in order to build up a culture of life. --Fr. Frank Pavone "National Director, Priests for Life"
One of the strengths of this book is that it includes a great many practical tips that are incredibly important for pro-life advocates who want to be effective when talking to pro-choice people. --Josh Brahm "President, Equal Rights Institute"
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Catholic Answers Press; *** 1st Edition- see New 2nd Edition Now Available (September 28, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 335 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1941663044
- ISBN-13 : 978-1941663042
- Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.28 x 1.06 x 7.99 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #452,040 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

After his conversion to the Catholic faith, Trent Horn earned three master’s degrees in the fields of theology, philosophy, and bioethics. He serves as a staff apologist for Catholic Answers, where he specializes in teaching Catholics to graciously and persuasively engage those who disagree with them. Trent is the host of The Counsel of Trent and has authored or co-authored over a dozen books, including The Case for Catholicism, Persuasive Pro-life, and Why We’re Catholic: Our Reasons for Faith, Hope, and Love.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book provides logical answers and practical stratagems for those with courage to enter the debate. They also say it answers hard questions and provides solid arguments. Readers describe the author as persuasive and sound, offering explanations in a good manner.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book provides logical answers and practical stratagems for those with courage to enter the debate. They say it answers hard questions and provides solid arguments that are difficult for readers to understand. Readers also appreciate the author's persuasive and sound way of working up the arguments. They mention the book is filled with easy-to-remember facts and acronyms to help present. Readers also mention the author does an excellent job explaining the prolife stance. They appreciate the well-thought-out ideas for use in discussing the pro-choice stance.
"...Because of Trent’s combination of practical apologetics and personal experience, I recommend every pro-life advocate to read Horn’s book...." Read more
"...It is well written and definitely comprehensive." Read more
"...The arguments contained in this book I believe clear up a lot of moral confusion I have had on many other topics not just on the issue of abortion...." Read more
"...Clear statements, easy to remember. This book is for those who want to defend life AND for those who think the Church is a "woman hater"...." Read more
Customers find the book compassionate, charitable, and logical. They also say it's kind and non-confrontational.
"...pro-abortion people using patience, reason and most-importantly, compassion. Buy this book and help in the defense of the unborn." Read more
"...tools and knowledge to facilitate healthy, fruitful, and compassionate dialogue in favor of the pro-life stance...." Read more
"...well, but he also explains how to have calm, progressive, and heartfelt conversations about "our culture's issue."..." Read more
"...He's also a very compassionate person and I like how none of his arguments seek to humiliate the person you're having a dialogue with." Read more
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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Horn provides the case that the pro-life advocate needs to have intellectual reasons to defend his position. “The most loving thing we can do for someone is to tell him the truth and prevent him from being deceived.” Horn encourages pro-life defenders to use questions. This is consistent with the tradition of Jesus and Socrates. Horn wrote, “When we make statements in conversation, they can turn unintentionally into speeches that get ignored. A better approach is to ask questions, because this lets us steer our conversations toward the truth without having to “preach” the truth to anyone.” Horn very practically encourages asking “dumb” questions to allow the pro-choice person to clarify their position. Some of those questions include:
1. What is abortion?
2. What is a child?
3. What is a human?
4. What is pregnancy?
5. What’s wrong with being pro-abortion?
6. Why is it wrong to kill a newborn baby?
7. What does abortion do to the fetus?
8. Is there a difference between a condom and an abortion?
9. Why is abortion a sad or difficult choice?
10. What is so upsetting about pictures of abortion?
Citing Steven Wagner, Horn suggest “agreeing whenever possible” when dialoguing about abortion. Perhaps one could find agreement by asking questions like: “Do you believe men should have the choice to abort their fetuses?” (Do you think men should be charged with the murder of a human being if they kill a pregnant woman’s fetus? Do you think the punishment should change if the fetus was unwanted? 3. “What do you think about aborting a fetus simply because she is female?” (Do you think a feminist can support abortion against female fetuses?) 4. “Would you prefer there were fewer abortions?” (Why? What is it about abortion that you find unpleasant?) 5. Should abortion be legal through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason? (If not, why not? Where do you think the cutoff should be, and why do you draw the line there?)
These type of agreement follows the example of Pope Benedict XVI who said that dialogue is not meant to create good relationships but that “the broader purpose of dialogue is to discover the truth.”(page 66) I thought one of Horn’s best portions in the book was dealing with the “TOLERANT.” Horn wrote, “Vice President Joe Biden said that while as a Catholic he personally believed that life began at conception, he could not impose that article of faith on other Americans.” Would we tolerate racism or slavery? Of course not. This reminded me a debate that Abraham Lincoln had with Judge Stephen Douglas that Francis Beckwith cited in Defending Life:
“In his failed 1858 bid for U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln engaged in a series of public debates with his Democratic opponent Stephen . Douglas. Amongst the many topics which they disputed was the question of whether U.S. territories should be allowed by the federal government to permit slavery if they so chose. Douglas maintained that although he personally opposed slavery, he was not willing to require that the federal government eliminate slavery, for to do so would be to violate the principle of popular sovereignty- that local majorities should be permitted to vote on the issue free of all federal constraints.
But, as Lincoln pointed, out, when Judge Douglas says he ‘don’t care whether slavery is voted up or down,’…he cannot thus argue logically if sees anything morally wrong in it,… When Judge Douglas says that whoever wants slaves, they have the right to have them, he perfectly logical IF there is nothing wrong with the institution; but if you admit it is wrong, he cannot logically say that ANYBODY HAS A RIGHT TO WRONG.”
Horn wrote, “For those critics who say it is disgusting for pro-life advocates to show graphic images of abortion, I would refer them Naomi Wolf’s article, in which she candidly admits: The pro-choice movement often treats with contempt the pro-lifers’ practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics. . . . But feminism at its best is based on what is simply true. While pro-lifers have not been beyond dishonesty, distortion and the doctoring of images (preferring, for example, to highlight the results of very late, very rare abortions), many of those photographs are in fact photographs of actual D & Cs; those footprints are in fact the footprints of a 10-week-old fetus; the pro-life slogan “Abortion stops a beating heart” is incontrovertibly true. While images of violent fetal death work magnificently for pro-lifers as political polemic, the pictures are not polemical in themselves: they are biological facts. We know this.” (page 91)
Horn encourages using graphics effectively. Although I’ve heard other pro-life apologists like Scott Klusendorf cite this Wolfe quote before, Horn’s book provides unique real life conversations. Because of Trent’s combination of practical apologetics and personal experience, I recommend every pro-life advocate to read Horn’s book. I give it 5 out of 5 stars.
For the most part, Horn writes lucidly, at times conversationally, yet the book is not a quick read. He is most effective with his suggestion to Trot Out the Toddler, i.e., to ask why a justification for abortion would not also permit killing a toddler. And his insistence that a prolifer "not be weird" and listen to rather than simply attack those who have participated in abortions is invaluable.
Persuasive Prolife would be a very good resource for anyone interested in the abortion controversies, and particularly for those actively involved in prolife efforts.
Top reviews from other countries
This is probably the best acquisition I have ever made. Now I am able to better represent the pro-life side and to debunk common pro-choice arguments. It is good to be passionate pro-life but it is also important to be intelligent pro-life, and to be able to convey the pro-life message with charity and intelligence. This book definitely helps to achieve that. This is a must-read for every pro-life advocate.





