We’re very excited about our post this week, because it marks the Minimise Project’s first appearance on a podcast. And not just any podcast – we’re on the Equipped for Life podcast!


This is the discussion podcast of the Equal Rights Institute. ERI are a big influence on us at Minimise: they came up with the Equal Rights Argument that we’re very fond of using, and their approach to serious, real dialogue about abortion was one of the things that inspired us to found the Minimise Projcet.

ERI describe their mission like this:

We want pro-life advocates to dialogue well with pro-choice people, and clear-thinking goes hand-in-hand with good dialogue. Even when two people are being polite, their conversation will get stuck if they can’t find clarity on where they disagree and why. We are going to help pro-life advocates to reason well about difficult arguments, but also to ask the right kinds of questions so they become better at understanding different views.

Part of reasoning well is being willing to evaluate arguments honestly. It is very easy to go into an argument with your conclusion already decided, but doing this opens yourself up to self-deception. We encourage pro-life advocates to be open-minded, even about abortion. While this may sound like we aren’t confident that abortion is wrong, it is quite the opposite. One should only exhibit stubbornness and an unwillingness to go where truth leads if you’re afraid you’re wrong. We want to see productive dialogue between people who disagree, and open-mindedness makes productive dialogue possible.

Anyway, it’s great for us to be on their podcast. Ben and Muireann talk to ERI president Josh Brahm about topics including: the Irish abortion situation; the founding of Minimise; dealing with differences within the pro-life movement;  the circumstances that led to Savita Halappanavar’s death, and some of the things that often get left out of the discussion about it. They also tell a story about using the Equal Rights Argument to have a great conversation with some sceptical students.

We’d love if you’d give it a listen here, or watch the video version here.

Happy Easter everyone.