This past Thursday, March 21st, the popular Catholic apologist and pro-life speaker Trent Horn gave a speech at St. Louis University (SLU) about the pro-life position in the abortion debate. His speech was hosted by the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter and was located in the Anheuser-Busch auditorium of SLU, where it was well attended. Despite WashU’s ongoing midterms, a group of pro-life WashU students1 were present at the speech, having been invited through College Republicans.
Trent Horn’s speech, which was both about the pro-life position and how to argue for it, followed two main themes. First of all, Horn taught the listeners how to argue for the pro-life position by first establishing commonly held facts, and proceeding to demonstrate how those show that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life. For example, if there is a person who supports abortion for cases of rape, an agreement that rape is evil and traumatic on the part of both the pro-life and pro-choice can lead to a further agreement that the taking of innocent life is evil and traumatic, and therefore an abortion only would worsen the problem. Secondly, Horn explained the pro-life SLED Test, which demonstrates both the life and personhood of the unborn child, and demonstrated how it can be used to disprove many of the popular pro-choice arguments.
While Trent Horn is best known as a popular apologist for Catholicism, the speech was largely focused on logical, scientific, and practical arguments for the pro-life position rather than a specifically theological one. For instance, Horn used arguments from evolutionary science and the comparative lengths of gestation in various mammal species in demonstrating that the dependency of the fetus does not contradict (and in fact strengthens) the claim that the fetus is a living human. Furthermore, there were listeners of many religions, and the WashU group included a Catholic, a Hindu, a Jew, and a Calvinist.
The speech also attracted a planned protest in support of abortion by several SLU students. However, this protest was fraught from the beginning, and the protestors even had to change their signs, as the initial slogan of “Fight for Women’s Rights” was replaced with the slogan “Fight for Uterus Owner’s Rights.” Ultimately only 3-4 protestors showed up, and these protestors did not attempt to disrupt the speech, merely walking out shortly after Horn began speaking.
After the speech, Horn answered several questions in the Q&A section, including one about ectopic pregnancies, one about the connection between the popularization of contraception and abortion, and one about tips for dealing with a university hostile to pro-life speakers. Horn answered all of these questions, but gave an especially poignant answer to the last question, telling those present that the pro-life cause should not be sold as either a partisan or religious one, and that sometimes the most powerful speakers on the issue might be those who disagree with Christians or conservatives on other issues.
- As a disclaimer, both myself and fellow Danforth Dispatch writer Joshua Warner were present. ↩︎