Meeting of Minds on Abortion?

An article in today's Washington Post offers hope that an outbreak of common sense might be in the offing on the abortion front. See the entire article here. After thirty-five years of attempting and failing to ban abortions there appear to be movements afoot in the pro-life community to begin dealing realistically with means to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and provide the kinds of support to pregnant women that could help more decide to bear their children. Such measures are welcome and long overdue.

"Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of anti-abortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions," reports Jacqueline L. Salmon. The election of Barack Obama has ended for the foreseeable future the likelihood of anti-abortion justices being nominated to the Supreme Court. With that in mind, some abortion foes have decided to take Obama up on his word.

In accepting the Democratic nomination at Denver's Invesco Field Obama said, "We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country." This follows in the same vein as that enunciated by Bill Clinton when he, as candidate and president, stated his view that, "abortion should be safe, legal and rare."

Most Americans feel abortion should be legal, in the 2006 Gallup Survey by a margin of 60% to 36%. But they are also uncomfortable with it. Gallup also finds that 51% consider the practice "morally wrong." Pew Research showed this dilemma by finding that 66% of Americans favored a "middle ground" between the polar positions while only 29% said there was "no room for compromise."

Among those promoting the pregnancy prevention and personal support include the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, Sojourners, a progressive evangelical movement, Catholics United, Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals and Joel Hunter, pastor of Northland Church in Longwood, Fla., one of the nation's largest churches. Hunter says, "There's got to be a way we can take some of these hot-button issues and cooperate, rather than simply keep fighting and becoming gridlocked in this hostility of the culture wars."

Social research appears to strongly back up the approach. A study by Catholics United for the Common Good found, "The abortion rate for women living below the poverty line is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level." Women who have no insurance or access to contraception and who see little prospect of properly providing for a child are far more likely to opt for abortion. Basic common sense should have made this conclusion obvious to all long ago. It would be a good thing if action were now taken. Fewer unwanted pregnancies and healthier mothers and babies would be very good things for American society. It's about time.