Abortion–AHHHHHH!

Mention

abortion to many faithful Democrats, and that is the reaction you’ll get.  They’ll go screaming from the room.  Let’s be honest folks, the Republicans have,

as my grandma would say, “whipped our petuties” on this issue in the faith
community.  They have been smart, and
we’ve been not so smart in how we talk about it.   As any
of us who have tried to avoid imagining a pachyderm knows, framing can win a
debate.  The Republicans have framed this
debate, and we keep insisting on fighting on their terms.

“Choice” kind of sounds nice, but given the alternative of “choice”
vs. “life,” which one will you choose?
Of course you will choose “life.”  But the framing advantage is deeper than
that.  To the vast majority of Americans
on both sides, this debate has little really to do with “choice”; it is rather
solely about when human life begins and when it becomes murder to kill a
baby/fetus.  For all but the most extreme
in our society, that is the only real issue at stake with abortion.  “Choice” arguments stand no chance of winning
over anyone who believes life begins at conception; to them, talking about a
woman’s “choice” sounds incredibly selfish and immoral.

Democrats
MUST change the way we approach the difficult and often painful topic of
abortion.  As Senator Clinton eloquently
expressed in a speech to NARAL last year, Democrats must be willing to express
a heartfelt concern about the number of abortions in our country. One in four
pregnancies in the United
States ends in abortion.  That is a tragedy and serious problem no
matter one’s view on when human life begins.
We should all be able to agree that it is in society’s best interest to reduce
the need and the numbers of abortions in this country.

When
the debate shifts from when human life begins to how we reduce the need for and
numbers of abortions, this shifts from a Republican strength to a Democratic
one.  Talking about abortion reduction is
a Democratic winner because most of the public policy prescriptions for
reducing unwanted pregnancies and reducing abortions are straight out of the Democratic
platform.  Like internet porn , this is an example of an issue where our political fortunes intersect
with what is best for the country.  We
win and Americans win if we shift the debate to focus on solutions rather than
the rhetorical straw men we currently spend our time talking about.

According to the CDC, only 1% of pregnancies ending in
abortion are the result of rape or incest and less than 1% of abortions are
performed in the third trimester of pregnancy.  Yet you hardly ever hear a pro-choice Democrat
talk about this issue without mentioning rape and incest and you hardly ever
hear a Republican talk about it without mentioning late-term abortions.

There
is an opening here for Democrats if we’re willing to change the way we talk
about abortion.  Clergy and religious
people of all types are increasingly frustrated with the rhetoric of the
Republican Party, which uses this issue as a political football and does little
to address the number of abortions.
Americans are receptive to a practical argument about how to reduce the
need for and number of abortions (Stan
Greenberg did a great poll on this). We must continue to emphasize that
abortion is merely an end result of a long string of social ills that affect
millions of Americans.  And we need to
start shifting the debate from the loser for us of “life vs. choice” to the
winner of how we address the problem.

I’ll leave you with a couple fun (if depressing) little
facts.  Reducing unwanted pregnancies by
10% in this country would lead to fewer abortions in 3 days than outlawing all
late-term abortions (again, I’m citing a favorite source for great data on
social issues:  Third Way).

And as
we know, if Roe were overturned, the decision on outlawing abortion would be
turned over to the states.  What could we
expect if that happened?  Based on the
voting record of state legislatures and adding in any states with greater than
45% of their population self-identifying as “Pro-Life” (two of the best
indicators for whether a state would outlaw abortions), you come up with between
10-16 states that would be likely to outlaw abortion.  Going with the larger number, those 16 states
account for less than 10% of abortions in this country (their legislatures
already make it difficult and the population is less inclined toward that
option).  So even if there was 100%
enforcement and none of the women from these states crossed the border to get
an abortion in a state where it was legal, overturning Roe would only reduce
abortions in this country by around 10% (Catholic Democracy Alliance Abortion
Study, 2006).   On the other hand, based on 25 years worth of
data, we know that reducing poverty in this country by 10% would lead to a 30%
reduction in abortions.

We’re
clearly talking about the wrong things.
And we’re losing this debate.
It’s time to change the focus.
Kudos to Reps. Ryan and DeLauro and the Democrats for Life for their
bills that would do just that!