Reproductive health care advocates are modifying the old adage "don't get angry, get organized" by going local.

After weathering eight years of conservative attacks, the pro-choice community held high hopes that the Obama Administration, bolstered by democratic majorities in Congress, would signal an end to partisan bickering over federal funding for comprehensive care and the tedious national obsession with abortion.

With that optimism scattering to the four winds of manufactured political controversy, the National Institute for Reproductive Health is organizing the Urban Initiative for Reproductive Heath, four regional urban summits to bring providers, policymakers, activists, funders and legislators together to share effective program strategies and localized incidence data.

"There is a limitless potential to create change for women's health at a local level," said NIRH president Kelli Conlin at a Sept. 23 kick-off event in Denver. "What people here realize, much more clearly than people out East or in Washington, is that not everything has to be a knock-down, drag-out fight. You can get things done without burning down the house."

Finding common ground in unlikely places

The emphasis on seeking common ground was a dominant theme in sessions on sexuality education, underserved populations and the intersection of reproductive freedom and economic self-sufficiency.

Denver summit co-host Emilie Ailts of NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado moderated the opening plenary session on how urbanization and regional political shifts signal new demographic groups the pro-choice community should be targeting for support. Though electoral demographics may not be a subject that's typically top of mind among reproductive health advocates it's an especially savvy tactic to identify issue reframing opportunities with new audiences — another hot topic of conversation among participants.

One of the more interesting examples of this new thinking was shared by Jill Hanauer, founder of the progressive strategy firm Project New West, who noted the recent lessons of Montana, a traditional red state and unlikely beacon in the progressive political fog. According to state electoral results, George W. Bush carried the state by 20 percentage points in the 2004 presidential election. A mere four years later, GOP candidate John McCain won by just two points. To Hanauer, that stunning electoral gap should spur pro-choice advocates to reconsider potential alliances. As she explained in a data-laden presentation, typically conservative-minded people who affix flag stickers to their cars and own firearms also care deeply about self-determination and would make natural allies in the fight to protect reproductive choice.

Teresa Henry, a state representative from Missoula, Mont., has successfully carried several pieces of legislation on health care access and sex education by following Hanauer's advice to broaden the coalition. Despite its reputation as a conservative hotbed, Henry describes the political climate in Montana as hopeful.

"I think if we can personalize it it's one of the ways that we can reframe the issue," said Henry, a three-term representative who is running for a state senate seat. She also noted that seizing on people's optimism about health care reform can help drive more productive conversations.

While it's not surprising that conservatives have attempted to derail the proposed public option to provide a federally-backed health insurance program with an intellectually dishonest debate over taxpayer funds supplementing abortion services, pro-choice activists are looking to more centrist issues to attract allies to the greater cause.

Sexuality education: the new front for finding common ground in the West

Bridging the gaps between inconsistent, impractical federal mandates and public health policy at the local level has long been a challenge for service providers and advocates, alike. That's been especially true for school-based youth programs.

Kalpana Krishnamurthy, field director for the Portland, Ore.,-based Western States Center, is seeing some encouraging trends in culturally-relevant sexuality education curricula that emphasizes values, teaches healthy relationship skills and empowers parents — all improvements that can help diminish both legitimate local concerns and overblown partisan bleatings.

"When the information that their child brings home does not reflects their values and culture, parents will resist," said Krishnamurphy referring to recent community surveys that probed how to best deliver sex education beyond a clinical framework. "If we want to start a dialogue with parents, schools and sex ed programs need to understand the critical role that parents play."

Getting schools and parents on board also provides opportunities to broaden the public discussion to related social problems.

Widely held public perception that sexuality education is limited to imparting pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted disease information belies the intertwined issues of economic empowerment, education and delayed childbearing.

Denver City Councilman Paul Lopez represents several west side neighborhoods that collectively boast the city's highest unintended pregnancy rates. He refers to the problem as a perfect storm of education, jobs, health care and immigration status disparity.

To make his point, Lopez refers to startling Colorado teen fertility statistics: white, non-Hispanic girls between the ages 15-17 have a pregnancy rate of 10.2 percent while for Latinas the figure soars to 69 percent. In any other context the latter would be considered a health epidemic that would, in turn, unleash a torrent of public concern and funding for prevention programs.

But the reality in Denver, like many other cities across the nation, is a multi-million dollar budget deficit won't permit the diversion of dwindling capital to teen pregnancy prevention when it's simply labeled a social problem. Lopez argues that if communities considered reproductive health issues as economic ones a very different set of public expectations would emerge — political figures would become more likely to prioritize sex education funding and the partisan social wedge would be considerably weakened.

That perspective was shared by many at the summit, including Gretchen Gagel McComb, president of the Women's Foundation of Colorado, an endowed fund that underwrites self-sufficiency programs and policy research.

"One of the things that we're trying to work with other like-minded women's organizations is how we reframe the discussion about reproductive health because it always devolves to abortion," said McComb.

Finding agreement between the polarized views on sex education between those that advocate abstinence-only and others that support a more comprehensive view is at the center of McComb's efforts to broaden the community conversation about the lack of reproductive health care access and its effects on the widening economic gap for women with children.

But flipping that switch isn't easy.

The call for pragmatism meets reality

Shifting away from ineffective faith-based, abstinence-only sex education programs as the primary federally-funded option for youth pregnancy prevention has been mired in power struggles inside the Oval Office and on Capitol Hill.

But those close to the White House's Office of Public Engagement are confident negotiations to promote science-based comprehensive sex education will win out.

"Here's where we need to give credit to the White House," said William Smith of SEICUS, one of the national organizational participants in the summit. "They are trying hard to bring together disparate voices to try and figure out how to lower the temperature on the abortion debate."

Smith notes that the White House-backed Ryan-DeLauro bill, a common ground approach to reduce abortions that has been met with skepticism by advocates on both sides of the issue, and the overarching health care reform debate have advanced the value of comprehensive reproductive health care into the public fore.

Even when that debate turns prurient, as it did when Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) quipped Friday that he doesn't believe health insurance policies should be larded up with maternity care coverage causing Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) to shoot back: "I think your mother probably did."

Despite the senatorial made-for-TV fireworks, Smith is optimistic that prevention bills are the key to avoiding ideological hackles. Though he doesn't discount that the process of community dialogue is and will continue to be arduous.

"In the federalist system of government that we've got, how do you meet the people where they are and bring them to the point you want them to be?," asks Smith. "That's the trajectory in which we have to work."

The Urban Initiative for Reproductive Health will hold its next session in Atlanta, Ga., on Sept. 30-Oct. 2, followed by Chicago, Ill., (Oct. 21-23) and Los Angeles, Calif., (Oct. 29-30). Presentations will be posted on the summit Web site to encourage cross-regional dialogue on common issues.