The Call for Common Ground
by Cristina Page, Moderator, OnCommonGround
April 7, 2009 - 4:00pm (Print)
Some historic moments are short and sweet. That was the case last Friday with a call the White House organized on common ground in the abortion conflict. In a never before attempted event, the Obama administration merged dozens of leaders from the pro-choice and pro-life movements onto one conference call line and, wisely, muted us.
The team to which Obama has assigned the task of shaping a civil discussion and exploring common cause within the abortion conflict enthusiastically laid out a profoundly sensible plan. Melody Barnes, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, kicked off the call explaining that their goal is not to change minds on the dug-in issue of abortion. Rather, she explained, the intent is to focus on the areas in which, theoretically, both sides share a common interest. And there are many: preventing unintended pregnancy (including teen pregnancy), reducing the need for abortion, strengthening supports for struggling families with wanted pregnancies, making adoption an option as accessible as any other, and saving lives by improving maternal and child health.
Barnes introduced the team that will help recruit people to the common cause: Tina Tchen, Executive Director of the Council on Women and Girls (she is also Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Public Liaison at the White House) and Rev. Joshua DuBois, Executive Director of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Tchen explained that they would take the next few months to meet with leaders on both sides to discuss various common ground proposals and to gather new ones. They will focus on projects that can be funded in the 2011 budget, as well as legislation and grassroots efforts that could be duplicated elsewhere.
The 15-minute call concluded with Barnes explaining that the President believes in common ground. This is the post-rant and, supposedly, post-culture war president. Common ground has become his way of framing his approach, a fundamentally optimistic view that if people of goodwill come together they can find ways to work together. Only the future will tell if that will be. But clearly the eminently rational Obama is betting that if reasonable people use reason they can get somewhere.
They promised to be in touch. The nasal-y conference call operator voice came on to signify the end of the call and the culture warriors retreated to their bunkers, awaiting further contact.
Certainly the surveys show that American public pines for the kind of common ground effort Obama seems to believe in. And in the brief but pointed call the No Drama Obama team seems to have figured out where to begin. It's put off limits the dogfight issues, like restrictions on abortion. The Obama team has chosen to narrow the scope. It's a call-your-bluff moment. You say you want to reduce unintended pregnancy? Well, then here's a common sense way to move forward. There has historically been deep resistance on the right to many of the approaches Obama favors, and even some in the pro-choice community, which has largely supported the Obama agenda, appear to wonder about the wisdom of making common cause with groups seen as part of the problem. The Obama team must have wondered whether it will find willing partners for what's meant to be a shared journey. Luckily, for the moment, the mute button was pushed.
And that gave the Obama team a chance to lay out its focused definition of common ground, a vague term which had understandably been open to wide interpretation. Last Friday, in its signature all-business style, the Obama team came to the call with a meaningful, common sense agenda. They're not planning to solve the abortion conflict, and they're not pretending to be miracle workers. But they are hoping to find that, with some good will, there are the solutions to such fundamental issues as unintended pregnancy about which both sides ought not to disagree.
Cristina,
You've done an excellent job of highlighting the reasons why a Pro-Life Catholic such as myself can be an enthusiastic supporter of the president.
I would suggest that one of the best ways to make progress on common goals is to investigate what it is that we have been doing right over the past several years. The abortion rate in 1980 was 29.4 abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age. By 2004, that rate had declined to 19.4. This decline has been almost entirely due to a decline in the abortion rate for unmarried women. That rate has declined from 53.9 in 1981 to 30.9 in 2004.
The abortion rate for unmarried women is the product of three rates: frequency of coitus, conceptive effectiveness (which is the opposite of contraceptive effectiveness) and per cent of pregnancies terminating in abortion. The product of the first two rates, frequency of coitus and conceptive effectiveness, gives us the pregnancy rate. We know the way the pregnancy rate has risen and fallen since 1973 (and we can make pretty good guesses before then) but the government hasn't done enough research on how the constituent elements of that rate have risen and fallen.
The pregnancy rate (for unmarried women) rose from 56.0 in 1973 to 92.2 in 1991. It would be difficult to argue that the entirety of that rise was due to an increase in conceptive effectiveness. For that to be true, birth control would have had to have been about half as effective in 1991 as it was in 1973. Could people have really gotten that bad at birth control in eighteen years? The other possibility is that the frequency of coitus rose from 1973 to 1991. How much, though, and why? Are there policies which cause that rate to rise? Are there policies which could cause that rate to decline? What about birth control? What policies improve it, what policies make it worse? And, the big question, does a decline in the second rate cause a rise in the first?
I would support spending my taxpayer dollars to get answers to these questions. Meanwhile, people argue from preconceived beliefs rather than actual data. If we want to save lives we need to learn from the data, not interpret the data based on what we want it to be.
One rate we do know about is the percentage of pregnancies that end in abortion. That rate was 66.4% in 1977 and it has fallen steadily to 40.7% in 2004. That's a big change! From my Pro-Life perspective I would have to say that more women are 'choosing life'; from my Pro-Life for Choice perspective I would be quick to point out that we got a significant change without significantly restricting a woman's access to abortion. I think we can continue to see that rate decline without needing to overturn Roe -- but we need to learn HOW to do that. What are the factors that cause women to choose childbirth? What are the factors that cause women to choose abortion? No woman wants to have her privacy violated, but if we could get good answers to those questions we would really covering some ground in the effort to protect the unborn.
Paul Bradford Pro-Life Catholics for Choice
Many years ago I attempted to answer the questions Paul Bradford poses: "What are the factors that cause women to choose childbirth?" and "What are the factors that cause women to choose abortion?" Choices Women's Medical Center did a major study in conjunction with Adelphi University in 1981 that showed, with statistical significance, that economics was the main factor in the decision making of whether or not to bring a pregnancy to term. The study found that 53 % of women seeking abortion did so for financial reasons as opposed to 28 % the year before.
A surprising factor in this study was the fact that many women described themselves as anti-abortion until it came to their own decision. I called this the "rape, incest or me position."
Indeed, I named the study "Abortionomics" to highlight the economic policies of Ronald Reagan (who called ketchup a vegetable) as being the necessary if not sufficient cause in the rise of the rate of abortion.
I predict a rise in the rate of abortion now that the economy is so troubled and women who have the major responsibility for their families bear most of the brunt of the downturn.
Women make their maternal choices within a network of relationships, their own life goals, their existing families and the support around them(personally and socially) for one choice or the other.
One can study the rate of coitus, plot trends, educate and provide accessible reproductive health care services, but ultimately we are speaking about women's "freedom to choose" in a society that loads those choices through its institutional, political, economic and social programs.
Before we can get to "common ground," we have to have a common definition of what abortion is. It is not a failure of moral thinking, a mistake, a sin or the judgment of God on an errant country. It is an individual woman's decision of whether or not to bring another life into the world. It is a decision of power, responsibility and survival.
The transcendent issue here is the ability of women to make that moral individual and ultimately personal choice without obstacles or coercion.
Merle Hoffman
President
Choices Women's Medical Center
www.choicesmedical.com
and
Publisher and Editor in Chief
On The Issues Magazine
www.ontheissuesmagazine.com
Indeed, I named the study "Abortionomics" to highlight the economic policies of Ronald Reagan (who called ketchup a vegetable) as being the necessary if not sufficient cause in the rise of the rate of abortion.
Your study was in 1981, before anyone could say what effect Reagan's policies would have on the abortion rate. The rate was 29.4 when he took office and 27.3 when he left. That's a drop of 7% in eight years. The rate dropped to 25.9 after G.H.W Bush's four year term. That's a drop of 5%. Eight years of Clinton brought the rate down to 21.5. That's a drop of 17%. G.W.Bush's first term (we don't have data, yet, for his second term) brought the rate down to 19.7. That's a drop of 8% in four years.
If a drop in the abortion rate is indicative of good economic policy then the US has been blessed with four excellent presidents since you did your study. (I expect Obama's 'economic policy' to be excellent as well)
Paul Bradford
Merle,
Thank you so much for this post and particularly the last 3 paragraphs.
I liked it so much I visited the OTI website and liked your magazine even better.
