President Obama's Call for Common Ground on Abortion Reduction

I voted for Obama after supporting Republicans for a long time. I guess I really believed the things he said at the Saddleback forum. I thought, "Well, working towards less abortions is something we should all be able to rally around." Buut, I'm feeling a bit let down by him today. I believed his overtures to reach out to the prolife community and while, I did not expect he would work to make abortion illegal I did expect that he would keep his promise to make abortion rare. Repealing the ban on using US tax dollars to fund abortions in US and abroad is a major move in the wrong direction. This may not have happened on the exact anniversary of Roe v Wade, but it was one of his first actions in his presidency. It is hard for me to see any good spin on this as much as I would like there to be.

Why is polarization seen as such a bad thing?

I would guess that most readers of SOJO would take an uncompromising view against fascism or ethnic cleansing and that in the process of expressing their uncompromising views they might risk polarizing debate in a country where such outlooks and actions were tolerated and enshrined in law.

The fact that you desire a "dramatic reduction in abortion" , and assume your readers share this aim, must mean that you instinctively know it to be an act in which the unborn child dies through no fault of its own.

Uncomfortable though this is to say or read, it highlights the fact that not all social justice issues can be won through consensus alone. Intolerance (defined for the purposes of this debate as a refusal to accept the status quo) also has its place.

So when Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy he will simply be entering into "tit for tat" politics. Where is the change? I don't care so much about dialogue. I care more about how our President uses his pen than his mouth.

Why is it that the Religious Left always calls abortion a "polarizing" issue? My guess is that for most, deep down, they know it is what it is: the murder of an unborn child. To be consistently pro-life not only means to fight against hunger, poverty, death penalty, war, etc.; it also means to fight for the rights of an unborn human being.

Jim........there is no "middle ground." It's a baby in the womb that is being killed, plain and simple. One abortion in America is one too many. This is where the discussion starts. It is human life in the womb. All decisions cascade from there.

Well if he supports the Pregnant Women Support Act and the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Pregnant and Parenting Student Services Act, then we can believe him. So far, there is no indication of that. Or will he just support a phony reduction bill that is a massive subsidy to Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider?

We've heard the language for a long time, but Obama has yet to actually support any genuine abortion reduction legislation.

My question: Did President Lincoln make it his priority to seek "common ground" with opponents of abolition in order that slavery might become rare?

(Indeed there were, in those days, many calls to this exact same position of "seeking common ground.")

Or did he simply oppose slavery for what it was -- injustice and oppression of the powerful against the powerless -- even to the point of tolerating a bloody civil war?

President Obama should follow in the footsteps of the great President he so much aspires to be like.

Let my try to put it another way. Assume Roe v. Wade is with us to stay--it just might be, afterall. If that were the case, would you not then work to reduce abortion? I'm not saying I think it should be that way, or that people shouldn't work to overturn RvW. But when we put all our efforts into overturning it, and find no merit in abortion reduction, then children die while we attempt the unlikely at the expense of the likely.

If we attack the problem as if RvW is here to stay, then if we want to see abortion end, we would be forced to put our efforts into discovering and addressing the roots of the problem--the underlying causes and social issues behind abortion. Attacking those issues might just make abortion unnecessary to those who would otherwise turn to it, even without outlawing it.

If, however, we think that abortion will be solved by overturning RvW, and we focus our efforts on that goal, not only will we not solve the problem of abortion (abortions will continue even if RvW were overturned), but we still won't understand the underlying causes, and we will have made little, if any progress. In the meantime, in the years we spend taking the all-or-nothing approach, babies who might have been saved through efforts of abortion reduction, will die.

Obama, ironically, is no different from the slave-holders themselves. They didn't see slaves as humans, just as he doesn't see the unborn as humans.

As for a new 'dialogue', is that like Obama saying, "I won" in response to conservative criticism of the bailout? Weren't we warned of all this? (Matt 7:15)

Why Mr. Willis finds him so admirable is beyond comprehension.

I respect that President Obama, someone who is committed to the right to abortion, is at least willing to engage in discussion on this issue with the "pro-life" side and that he has yet to characterize his opponents as people who just want to control women or force them into back alleys. I appreciate the dialogue.

Time will tell whether he's really serious about reducing abortion rates or whether he's just interested in defusing the issue.

I would appreciate it he stopped referring to "the need for abortion". There is no need for it. It is, as it's supporters say, a choice. Also, if he's truly interested in wooing pro-lifers perhaps sometimes he could add to his list of things he's determined to do is convince more people to choose life over abortion. I'll bet there are many voters out there who would look at him in a new light if he, while not trying to restrict the choice, actually said that he believes one choice is morally preferable over the other. Just a thought...

A good way to reduce abortion: don't pay for it with taxpayer dollars.

So Barack Obama chose to delay an EO rescinding the Mexico city policy. By all of a day. Big fat hairy deal.

Oh, and he also acknowledged that abortion is a sensitive issue. Like I've never heard that one before.

If we're going to find common ground on abortion, it's going to take more than rhetorical flourishes.

LV

"But when we put all our efforts into overturning it, and find no merit in abortion reduction, then children die while we attempt the unlikely at the expense of the likely."

"We" don't put all of our efforts into overturning Roe v Wade. Crisis pregnancy centers are run by pro-lifers. They don't get any publicity on this site (go figure), and reviled by pro-choicers.

But, for conservatives, Roe v. Wade has problematic implications beyond abortion. If judicial fiat can invent a right to privacy that supercedes the rights of a particular population to live, then the court effectively has the right to determine who lives or dies.

That the abortion movement is rooted in eugenics, and was once seen as a solution to the existence of problem populations, is troubling from a conservative perspective.

So the argument isn't just about raw numbers of abortions, though I have no reason to believe that we will see any substantial reduction under Obama. Let's face it. Even if the abortion rate increases under Obama, Wallis will applaud his rhetorical efforts on the issue. Wallis is pro-choice, and pleased as punch with the status quo.

The "middle ground" is "how do we best ensure that as few abortions happen as possible." There are arguments that illegality is NOT the best way to make that happen. Would you rather abortion be legal, but very few actually happen, or that it remain illegal if even ONE more abortion actually happens that would have happened under the "legal, but few" scenario.

THAT is what we're talking about when we use terms like "middle ground" in regard to abortion.

If you're looking for good spin you may want to research and compare the abortion numbers while this policy is in place and when it is not. I think you will find fewer abortions under the Clinton admin, when there was funding, than under Bush/Reagan when funding was banned.

"So the argument isn't just about raw numbers of abortions, though I have no reason to believe that we will see any substantial reduction under Obama. Let's face it. Even if the abortion rate increases under Obama, Wallis will applaud his rhetorical efforts on the issue. Wallis is pro-choice, and pleased as punch with the status quo."

I doubt it. Given that the abortion rate has gone down under every President for the past several Presidents, if it were to go up under Obama, that'd be a pretty black eye on Obama, and I'm fairly confident that Jim Wallis would be quick to call him on it.

The abortion rate has gone down for each President since at least as far back as Reagan. It went down from Clinton to W, too, although not by as much. Given this fact, though, it harder to say that it was Clinton's policies that increased the drop, as much as I'd like to go there.

Lincoln's priority was the preservation and restoration of the Union. He was not fundamentally a human rights advocate.

Why is polarization seen as such a bad thing?

Because, absent a specific moral consensus, laws would change with the lawmakers. That is, you could have an anti-abortion law passed by one legislative body and repealed a couple of years later with a tip of the ideological balance.

Uncomfortable though this is to say or read, it highlights the fact that not all social justice issues can be won through consensus alone.

That's not really relevant -- whether we want to accept it or not, character makes a difference. In my experience with anti-abortion activists, they have often tended to be quite nasty with people who didn't agree with their tactics (I myself am "pro-life" but have been abused by such folks). One reason the "pro-life" movement lost electorally last November and in November 2006 was because many of its supporters in Congress were exposed as corrupt. Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. was so successful because he made the bad guys look like the bad guys.

But, for conservatives, Roe v. Wade has problematic implications beyond abortion. If judicial fiat can invent a right to privacy that supercedes the rights of a particular population to live, then the court effectively has the right to determine who lives or dies.

That's a bogus argument, given the contempt they often display for those who dare to challenge their ideology -- which, frankly, doesn't compute (which is why we're having this discussion in the first place -- they lost badly a couple of months ago). Rather, it's a way for them to push people around, their real goal, under the guise of "morality." In fact, one of the biggest supporters of Planned Parenthood, a guy who is local to me, over several decades funded the "conservative revolution" to the tune of $500 million, which tells me that abortion is a side issue and merely a way to get votes.

But so far what we've seen hasn't been Jim wallis taking Obama to task on Abortion. Ron Sider, a Progressive Pro-Lifer, did do that much:

http://www.rustypritchard.net/rusty/2008/07/ron...

Also Brett Kincaid who is part of ESA with Sider echoed his concerns:

http://www.esa-online.org/Article.asp?RecordKey...

Obviously, a fertilized egg is "human life" (in the sense that it is not "bird life", or "dog life", or "chimp life", though it certainly has a great deal in common with those other forms of life as well). But is "human life" the same thing as "a human being"? As far as I know, it is impossible to rationally prove or demonstrate when, exactly, a fertilized egg becomes "a person" deserving of equal protection under the law. Many people feel sure that it is a person from the moment of fertilization, others feel equally sure that it is not. But as far as our civil society goes, it should be the rational argument that wins the day. But there is no rational argument that can decide this issue, at least not beyond a reasonable doubt, which is probably the standard of proof that should be applied here, since it is a question of whether or not to make abortion into a crime, and the girls and women who have abortions into criminals. We need to keep this in mind: we are talking not only about protecting innocent life, but also about whether or not to make abortion a crime, and whether or not to make girls and women who have abortions into criminals. In our society, to declare a verdict of guilty, we would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the woman has in fact committed murder. Do the arguments for the criminalization of abortion meet that standard of proof? Do they prove beyond a reasonable doubt--beyond a reasonable doubt, mind you--that a fertilized egg, or a zygote, or an early stage fetus is "a human person" and that abortion is therefore always and under all circumstances "murder"? As far as I know, they do not. They do not meet that standard of proof. Thus, early stage abortion should not be criminalized (where to draw the line is another, and a different kind of, question). For those wishing to make abortion not only rare, but also illegal, do you believe the punishment should be the same as that for murder? If so, then you are at least being consistent. If you truly believe it to be the deliberate and pre-meditated murder of a person, of a human being, and if you think you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, then the punishment should fit the crime. However, if (for reasons other than sheer mercy) you balk at the idea of punishing a girl or woman as a murderer for having had an abortion, then are you not, perhaps, sensing that there may be a difference between early stage abortion and murder? Is there not, after all, some "reasonable doubt" in there somewhere....? Is the killing of a single, fertilized cell; or a ball of undifferentiated cells; or a being that as yet has no brain or nervous system...is the killing of this being really, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the same as killing "a baby"? There is reasonable doubt, is there not? It is, I think, in that reasonable doubt, that there is the potential for a meeting of minds and hearts among people on different sides of this issue. I believe that most people are really in the following camp: We are "pro-life" (whenever possible we want to respect the dignity of all life, non-human, human, and personal); "pro-choice" (we want women, not the State, to make the difficult choice); "anti-abortion" (we do not think abortion is a good thing-even when necessary we think it "a necessary evil"-but we recognize that there is enough "reasonable doubt" to caution against dogmatic assertions on this issue, especially when it comes to the making of laws); and "anti-criminalization" (we do not believe that girls and women who have abortions should be treated or punished as criminals). I suspect that this is the camp Obama belongs to. Even the most ardent of anti-abortionists, even the pro-criminalization ones, should, I think, find a great deal of common ground and common purpose in his camp.

Why would anyone expect Obama not to act like a politician?

Lincoln was against slavery, but not in favor of equal rights. He supported repatriation - sending all African Americans to a new country of their own.