I recently spent a few hours gathering petitions on behalf of Planned Parenthood at a local Gay Pride Festival. Having never been to a pride festival in Kansas City, I'd have to say it was a little less flamboyant than I had expected, or maybe even had hoped. But I also have to point out that I'm totally cool with people expressing themselves by more casual means than dancing through in minimalist attire, if that's what they want. I'm not picky. I love gay people no matter how they dress, but leather makes things more fun. I'm just saying.
I was there gathering petitions for the Prevention First Act, which asks legislators to take a break from abortion and spend some time focusing on preventative measures like increasing access to birth control, STI testing, and comprehensive sex education. These are all things that can help reduce the occurrence of unintended pregnancies, thereby significantly lowering the instances of abortion. I would explain it like that to the people I approached, and the reactions I received were somewhat surprising.
Occasionally, I would approach somebody who turned out to be pro-choice and after I would explain what the petition was about, they would look at me blankly and say, "Sorry, I'm pro-choice" or, "I thought you said you were with Planned Parenthood?" and I'd have to explain that our goals were to not to make abortions illegal, but to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, which would curtail the need for abortion.
There were other times I would approach a group of people who turned out to be very strongly pro-life. I'd stand there with my little clipboard and watch their smiles fade at the mention of Planned Parenthood. "We're not interested," one would say. "We don't support killing babies."
They expected me to turn and walk away with my tail between my legs, but instead I politely informed them that the petition I was asking them to sign would reduce abortions. They were skeptical, as one might expect, and they read over the petition carefully, making sure my claim was truthful. After finally hearing my intentions, they were usually happy to sign.
In general, the response was overwhelmingly positive as long as I could make it seem like I was on their side. Many people even thanked me, citing occasions when Planned Parenthood had provided them with cancer screenings or contraceptives or even directions on how to put on a condom. What astounded me most was, in the end, we all seemed to be very much on the same side without realizing it.
I feel like there is a valuable lesson to be learned from this. We all have our own convictions when it comes to the topic of abortion. And in a rush to declare our alliances and opinions to those we deem a threat, it seems we stop listening. For a long time now, the arguments have remained the same. We enter our dialogues with certain expectations of what will be said and new approaches either get overlooked or approached with outright criticism. By measuring the reactions from people after they finally heard and understood the message of the petition, Prevention First is a great piece of real common ground legislation. But had I not been persistent in my attempt to break through the political palisade that went up as soon as the word ‘abortion' was spoken, people on both sides of this debate might have dismissed the proposal without a second thought. For those who are interested in finding common ground, I hope they find encouragement in my experience petitioning. First we need to break away from the broken-record of our dialogue so that people will start listening again; because this is a message worth hearing, worth spreading. And it's one that doesn't require taking sides.
