I was standing off to one side, inside the barricade of the exhibit. I had just finished one conversation and asked God to let me have a few minutes before the next one. I was zapped and not sure when I would have enough energy for the next conversation. I could hear "Unbelievable" by Owl City wafting through the air. "That's so cool," I thought to myself, "there must be someone on a bicycle riding by playing that song." After a minute or so of zoning out, I tuned back into the song and realized it wasn't going anywhere. (You can tell I was tired.) The song was getting me excited, so I looked to my right and saw the bike that my brain had told me about!
Standing by his bike and writing something on the Free Speech board was Nick*. I ran over to him, leaned over the barricade and said, "Owl City!" Looking up from his writing, Nick said, "Yeah?" And went back to writing. Undeterred by his lack of enthusiasm, I read aloud what he had written, "Everyone is born equal. You can add or subtract to that value later." When I asked what he meant by that, he wrote, "All people are equal. Some people are more equal than others. -Orwell"
I've read Animal Farm, but he had not, so I asked, "what are things that people do that you would say detract from their personal value?" He mentioned things like harming, demeaning, and killing people. We agreed together that abortion is included in his definition of killing. Instead of assuming we were on the same page, I directed the conversation to one of the fundamental points I've been taught to cover with people: "Is there a particular point in pregnancy where you would say abortions should not be done?" He considered this and said, "Around six or seven weeks when the heartbeat starts. It's not a person until then."
We had built a good base for a friendship by this point, so I let some more of my sudden energy channel into my next question: "Would you believe me if I told you the heartbeat starts at 3 weeks?" He seemed unfazed by this and just bumped his statement up to the line I had redrawn for him: "Then they shouldn't abort after three weeks." We talked for a while about why he thought heartbeat was the one thing essential to define the start of value in a person's life.
Instead of debating this with him like I would have done before JFA, I called to mind a fact that I had learned the previous week. "Do you mind if I geek out for a minute?" (As if I hadn't been doing that this whole time.) "Go ahead," he said kindly. So I launched into an explanation of DNA, describing it as a box that is completely human, completely unique, and houses everything we as people can call our body. "The only things that change from conception to you and me are time and food."
He considered that for a while and asked me to draw out the meaning. "Your heartbeat, the one you insist has to be present for value, is already present inside the box of DNA. It just needs time and food to turn into the beating heart and everything else. It's all right there from the very beginning." He thought about it, explained it back to me, and said, "then all abortion is wrong no matter when it happens."
I did a happy dance and we talked on and off for two more hours about Christianity, Buddhism, feminism, and what it means to respect life. At one point, a Christian student joined our conversation and shared her testimony! Afterwards, my energy was waning and his was only increasing. It was 2 o'clock when I said, "Nick, I've loved talking with you. Do you mind if I go eat lunch now?" We exchanged numbers, and he cheerfully biked away.
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