Abortion, Where Do We Agree?

          For this essay, I wanted to write about how if everyone started conversations, especially political conversations, about where there is common ground or where everyone agrees on a topic these type of conversations would go better. I wrote my paper about abortion and I added what both sides thought and where they were coming from. I actually learned a lot about this project, I learned more about where both sides are coming from and why they thought. Before I started this project I actually didn't know exactly how abortions were performed when the fetus is more developed and from learning more about that I know where pro-life people are coming from. I would say the common ground between pro-life and pro-choice people would be that they both value human life, the difference is just where that starts and ends for both sides. For example, pro-life people value the fetus more than the woman that is carrying that unborn child. They think that life starts and conception and they believe that at that point it is someone else's body and a woman shouldn't be able to have that choice to terminate that pregnancy. On the other hand, the pro-choice people value the woman's life and believe that if she doesn't want to have a baby then she shouldn't have to. They value the choice of whether a woman wants to have a baby or not and just overall reproductive freedom. After this project, I learned a lot about both sides and I'm glad I got the chance to make a project about this so that I am more informed about this topic and am able to have a more detailed conversation about abortion.

Visual

Reflection

    The project that I presented at my exhibition was my paper on abortion and how if all conversations, especially abortion, started on where the common ground is on both sides are, then all conversations about this topic would go a lot better. My paper was titled “Abortion, Where do We Agree?” and the response I got back from it on exhibition were all positive and encouraging feedback. I had multiple conversations with people about abortion and I liked all of them and what they had to say. I think the exhibition went pretty well. The seminar for group B went very well and we all had a very civil, professional conversation about multiple topics. Jackson and Ori definitely spoke the most but after a while, Jackson noticed that they had kind of been overpowering the conversation for a while and they invited other people to share their opinions which I really appreciated. The only thing that I wish there was more of was people, I think there could have been a better outcome audience-wise.
    Now that I have looked at both sides of abortions more deeply, I can say I learned more about where both sides are coming from and why most of them think the way they think. I wouldn’t say my perspective has shifted, but I would say I have a lot more knowledge about this topic and the next time I have this conversation I will be more informed about it. Something I understand more about my own values that I didn’t before is that I understand more about why a woman wouldn’t want to have a child. I understood this before but now I understand that there could be so many reasons why. For example, it could be financial reasons, it could have been rape, it could have been that the child wasn’t wanted/planned, etc. Something I understand now about the other side is how the actual abortion procedure works. Now I know what the procedure is and how it works and how sometimes it can have emotional side effects to the woman that get them. Before I started this project I didn’t know how what the procedure was and now I know and I can understand where pro-life people are coming from and why it is so intense.
    Something I have learned about democracy after this project is that I am glad to be in a country that is a democracy. I am glad that the public gets a say in what happens to us, even though it doesn’t always go as planned, I’m glad we aren’t in a dictatorship or something harsher than that.
    My political views have not changed because of this project but I have learned a lot about both sides of the political spectrum over this project that is going to be really useful in the future. Before this I didn’t know what the term “straw man” ment and now I do and I will definitely notice when people do it a lot more from here on out. I learned what it meant to be “Willing to Be Disturbed” and I will probably think about that every time I am having a discussion with someone and we are trying to understand the other person’s point of view. I think a lot more people could benefit from reading that paper. Overall I’m just really happy with everything I learned during this project because it is going to help me in the long run.
    I think the role that rogerian rhetoric and “Willingness to be Disturbed” is really useful in a democratic society because people use rhetoric everyday. Politicians use rhetoric to convince people to be on their side or vote for them, literally every part of the government uses this type of speech. The paper “Willingness to be Disturbed” I think would help so many people in their day to day lives. I especially think people in our government should be reading this. It is something that I think has a lot of potential to help people try to have civil discourse with one another. I think this could come in handy when two people who aren’t even in our government are just trying to have a conversation but disagree with each other. This helps people see why it is so important to try to step into someone else’s shoes for a day and try to see where they are coming from. I think this is an important skill for everyone to have.