When people can’t answer your moral argument against some behavior or practice (such as abortion, same-sex marriage, or transgenderism), they’ll commonly respond with, “Well, how does this affect you?” This is a red herring. Don’t take the bait.

While you may be able to show how the behavior affects you, its personal impact on your life is irrelevant. This becomes obvious when you ask the same question of other moral matters. How are you personally affected by murder? How are you personally affected by sex trafficking? How are you personally affected by rape? There are many egregious evils in the world that have no felt impact on my life, and yet they remain evil nonetheless and should be condemned as evil.

The best way to respond to this ploy is by saying, “Whether I am personally affected by X or not is irrelevant. The question is whether X is right or wrong. I’ve provided reasons for thinking X is wrong. What do you think about that argument?”