I’ve always interpreted Obama’s call for common ground differently.  I doubt he has any illusions about getting rabid wingers to work with him.  What he’s doing is setting himself up as reasonable and reaching out to the other side, which makes the opposition look that much worse when they slap him back.  I believe there are examples of this in the Illinois legislature, where he’d offer to work with the opposition then when they refused to go along he’d just do what he wanted anyway while giving the other side just enough rope to hang themselves.

Anti-choicers can’t be reasoned with, but most Americans want a “reasonable” solution to abortion.  Obama is offering that, and, if the anti-choicers spurn it, it’ll be that much more clear to most Americans who and what those people are.

No doubt there are some anti-choicers out there who actually want to reduce abortions by reducing unwanted pregnancies. The onus is on the rest of them to prove that they’re not actually suporting domestic terrorism. They need to find common ground with sane people, not the other way around.

no reason to believe that we can reduce the abortion rate by relieving financial woes.

The only way to reduce abortions is to reduce unwanted pregnancies.  The only way to do that is to educated people about biology and how it works, and how effective birth control is.  Then you make birth control affordable and easily accessed.  Then you work on changing the meme about having a baby...no man or woman should risk conceiving if they aren’t ready to raise a child.  That means BIRTH CONTROL FOR EVERYONE.

Abstinence is a form of birth control.  When you decide to have sex, you are choosing NOT TO USE ABSTINENCE anymore and need to use a different form.

However, even in an ideal world where 100% using birth control, there aren’t any failures, and no one ever conceives without meaning to, Dr. Tiller’s work WOULD STILL BE NECESSARY.

No one carries a baby for six months and then randomly decides to abort.

Genetic mishaps happen.  Fetuses do not always develop properly, no matter how wanted the child is.  Having a dead or dying fetus inside of you IS NOT A HEALTHY SITUATION.  Nor is having a healthy fetus if the pregnancy is causing pre-eclampsia or toxemia or there’s a placental abruption or any other number of normal, unavoidable complications.

Pregnancy is not fool-proof and it is not and can never be 100% safe.

When a wanted pregnancy goes wrong, women need to have medical interventions to save their lives and health.  That’s exactly what Dr. Tiller did.  Despite being terrorized.

He was a hero.

Amanda,

I don’t disagree with anything you say, but the whole debate is much bigger that reproductive choices.  It is, to over simplify, about the nature of the rights of free people and the right of others to curtail them to meet their social mores.  This is just one facet of the puritainism v. liberatum debate that has been going on since before there was a Republic.

Everyone, especially every Panda, should always remember that the people who want to limit reproductive choice also want to tell you what to read, what to believe, what to teach in school, and a whole host of other things.  They feel they not only have the right but the affirmative duty to shape society in their own view.  They are “True Believers.”

There is no compromise with a True Believer.  Even if the choice debate doesn’t affect you personally it is still your debate.  It isn’t just about reproductive choices, it is about all choices a free people ought to be able to make.

There are many different ways to be pro-choice, but only one way to be anti-abortion – i.e., by denying women are capable of making medical decisions for themselves without interference from legislators and busy-bodies.

If a person claims to be anti-abortion, whether he believes there are “exceptions” or not, he’s on one side of a gulf and there’s no way to bridge it such that he can find common ground with the pro-choice lobby. His basic assumptions about the world are simply too different from those who advocate for choice.

Even in the cases that Dr. Tiller specialized in, you can’t really argue that the abortion itself was a tragedy.  The medical situation was a tragedy.  The fact that the child that this woman was looking forward to having could not survive was a tragedy.  The fact that Dr. Tiller was able to save these women’s lives and make it possible to have other, healthier children in the future is pretty much the opposite of a tragedy.

kesh, I hope you’re right, but my experience tells me that a lot of liberals really want to think well of anti-choicers, and are willing to overlook a lot of bullshit.  Not that there aren’t soft-minded people who hate abortion and open to misogynist arguments about slutty women who need to have abortion restricted because they can’t be counted on to behave morally, but those people need to be challenged on why they listen to people who celebrate murder, not coddled.

Anti-choicers can’t be reasoned with, but most Americans want a “reasonable” solution to abortion.

keshmeshi:

Roe v. Wade. That was the reasonable compromise.  It is done.  It is law.  It recognizes the true biology of the situation.  It recognizes that as the fetus becomes viable the state does begin to acquire an interest in it.  There is no place left to compromise.  To paraphrase Patrick Henry, “The Gentleman my cry, ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace....  Is compromise so sweet or reasonableness so dear as to be purchased at the price of chains....  Forbid it, Almighty God....”

Where is there compromise to be had?  To the extent that better programs for pregnant women might reduce abortion, fine.  But a further legal compromise?  No.  Hell no.  Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.  It’s time to dig in.  No more hand-wringing.  No more false dichotomies.  This true tragedy should be enough to remind us that there is no compromise with tryanny.  To be honest, there never was.

If a person thinks abortion is a tragedy that should be avoided at all costs, than that person should never try have a baby.  Procreative sexual intercourse aborts up to 8 “unborn children” for every 1 that is born.

Women who have had children are all murderers many times over, if abortion is a tragedy.

“Even nature does not think embryos are as valuable as born people.  The vast majority (up to 80%) of fertilized eggs and embryos die before they are born.
This has nothing to do with abortion, birth control, or any other reason.  This happens in every fertile, sexually active woman:

“PROF. SANDEL: [W]hat percent of fertilized eggs fail to implant or are otherwise lost?

DR. OPITZ: The answer to your first question is that it is enormous. Estimates range all the way from 60 percent to 80 percent of the very earliest stages, cleavage stages, for example, that are lost.”
http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/jan03/session1.html

In fact, the numbers of embryos lost are so huge, they make abortion pale in comparison.

Natural procreation causes more embryo loss than abortion:
“The rate of natural embryo loss after conception in unassisted human reproduction is high, some suggest as high as 80 percent,101 and the fact of natural loss is fairly well known, so that persons who engage in or permit the pursuit of conception through unassisted reproduction are knowingly bringing about the conception of many embryos that will die.

Moreover, they suggest, the high rate of natural embryo loss should bring into question the views of those who believe that early-stage human embryos merit equal treatment with human children and adults. If so many die in the natural course of things, how do we not treat natural procreation as a great fountain of tragedy and carnage? They argue that the natural rate of embryo loss, and our response to it, should teach us something about the limited significance of human embryos in the earliest stages.”
http://www.bioethics.gov/background/monitor_stem_cell.html

http://wingnutwatch.typepad.com/wingnutwatch/2009/02/why-i-am-prochoice.html”

I know that there really are people out there who would not have had an abortion if they were in a better place financially.  I, for one, really want kids and would probably have them by now if money grew on trees.  Too bad it doesn’t and I ain’t pushin’ out no baby without good health insurance and a reasonable childcare arrangement, and if that means I have to have an abortion someday I will, even though I want kids.  I am sure I am not the only one.

There aer probably not as many as the surveys might indicate, but I bet it is not an insignificant number, either.

Sure, you can find an exception to every rule.  But barring giving said people enormous raises, there’s not much we can do for them.

All of the women who had to see Dr. Tiller so that they continue being a wife and a mother and not follow their dead or dying fetus to the grave need to get out and tell their stories to a media eager to cover this murder. Force people to understand that they didn’t just swan into his office at 8 months done with the whole pregnancy thing because their back hurt, that there were real lives and real families who would have lost their mother if he hadn’t been able to help them.

GumbyAnne says: I know that there really are people out there who would not have had an abortion if they were in a better place financially.

Agree!  And a “better place financially” means some sense of longer-term financial stability, not just being able to pay for prenatal and childbirth costs - it means feeling that you have some reasonable expection of being able to support/raise a child for 18+ years.

The other area where I feel the anti-choice crowd is disengenous is regarding adoption.  There are thousands of children available today for adoption - all races, ages, etc in every state.  Yet they remain unadopted even when some states offer significant financial support for adoption.  The reality is that the only “children” the anti-choicers are concerned about are perfect, white infants - otherwise there would be no children stuck in foster care for decades.

Rather than enormous raises, what is needed is universal health care, subsidized childcare and extended paid maternity leave.  Even a huge raise isn’t real security because you could always lose your job, but a strong social safety net for all citizens is something that might really change outcomes.  They have all these things in that magical fairy-land we call Scandanavia.  Abortion rates over there are the lowest in the world even though abortion is often free.  Free, available, destigmatized contraception is a big part of that, but generous social programs undoubtedly help.

Abortion should be praised and encouraged. A woman who does not want a child and has an abortion is morally superior to a woman who does not want a child but bears one anyway. Bringing an unwanted child into the world cannot be considered a moral achievement. Abortion should be considered good for both the individual and society.

Where is there compromise to be had?  To the extent that better programs for pregnant women might reduce abortion, fine.  But a further legal compromise?  No.  Hell no.

I’m not talking about a legal compromise, and neither is Obama.  I’m talking about positing real family-friendly policies and real access to and information about contraception as the means to lower the abortion rate, as is Obama.  This approach will make the anti-choicers squeal, thereby giving those Americans who are somewhat squicky about abortion less of an excuse to pretend that anti-choicers are actually concerned about the baybeez.

“If we buy into the frame that abortion is a tragedy, we’ve conceded the argument to the other side, who gets to have the moral high ground. “

A-fucking-men. “Legal, safe and rare” is another mealy-mouthed concession to this framing. The number of abortions that occur are the number of abortions that occur. To buy into the idea that abortion is always a sad, sad choice made by (poor, ignorant) women who just don’t know any better and who would always choose another option if only it were available is to deny the reasoning capacity of all women. Period.

Abortion IS an option. Perhaps some day there’ll be easy access to better and universal contraception education. Perhaps that will help reduce abortions. Perhaps not. Either way, any concession made to the idea that abortion is always sad/tragic/controversial/a tough choice is a concession to the idea that women don’t deserve bodily autonomy.

I fully support any woman’s right to have an abortion at any time, for any reason or no reason.  I support public funding for women who are unable to afford one. Whether or not it is a tragedy, is a characterization each woman having an abortion makes for herself.  However, I think it is often a difficult choice for a woman to make.  Abortion at whatever stage is an invasive medical procedure.  I believe that it is good for women and good for society for there to be fewer abortions due to fewer unwanted pregnancies.  More education, more access to contraception, more access to emergency contraception.  As Devil’s Advocate points out above, there are many ways to be pro-choice. This point of view as I have outlined it, which could hardly be described as anti-abortion, have sometimes placed me at odds with other commenters on this very site.  The common ground that must be found is along the continuum of those who are pro-choice.  If someone shares all my views but doesn’t think that public funds should be used for abortions, well, that person is still pro-choice and still an ally, just as is a person who is unconcerned about reducing the number of abortions.  It has taken, and will continue to take, a coalition to keep abortion safe and legal.

I have common ground with anti-choice activists.  I completely support their right to choose for themselves, as individuals, not to have an abortion.  I support their right to believe anything they want to believe.  I support their right to express their beliefs in peaceful ways, to offer legal, honest, and ethical options to abortion, and to advertise those options in legal, honest, and ethical ways.  I think they’re wrong, but I don’t see how I can honestly say anything different without betraying what I want for myself. 

The idea that THAT isn’t common ground is outrageous.  I don’t think I need to agree that abortion is a tragedy.  I don’t see them agreeing that a woman has the right to decide what happens to her own body, and for all that I passionately believe that this is true and that the government has a duty to uphold that right, I don’t think they have to agree with me.  They can disagree all they like, as long as they do it to their own bodies, and no one else’s. 

I am tired of pretending that this all doesn’t come down to the basic right of every person—especially every non-male-bodied/identified person-- to make their own choices within the confines of the law.  Abortion is already legal.  This whole outrage should be over.  Pretending that we don’t have common ground with anti-choicers is wrong.  We have plenty of it.  They just want our share of it as well as theirs.

I’m not talking about a legal compromise, and neither is Obama.  I’m talking about positing real family-friendly policies and real access to and information about contraception as the means to lower the abortion rate, as is Obama.  This approach will make the anti-choicers squeal, thereby giving those Americans who are somewhat squicky about abortion less of an excuse to pretend that anti-choicers are actually concerned about the baybeez.

keshmeshi:

The problem lies here not in what Obama actually means and what he wants to do.  I’m on board.  However, the point of the post, to me anyway, is that we’re using language that could lead some people to believe there is legal and ethical compromise possible.  We are, whether intend to or not, giving aid and comfort to the anti-choicers.  I hate to be arguing with you because I support what your talking about.  I just believe that, rhetorically, we may be damaging our own position when we have no earthly need to.

Rather than enormous raises, what is needed is universal health care, subsidized childcare and extended paid maternity leave.

We also need equal parental leave for fathers.  Assuming that mothers are more responsible for childcare is not a good solution.  I can understand that mothers might get a few extra weeks due to the physical recovery aspect of childbirth, but our society needs to encourage fathers to be as involved with their children’s lives as mothers.

I try to seek common ground on the vain hope that I can take away some support and funding for this murdering radicals like Terry Randall. A lot of people get bamboozled by the pretty baby in the womb pictures and the sweet talk and give money and votes to the “pro life” movement, but aren’t the fanatical that would scare women at clinics doors. If we can get those people to see what horrendous people the radicals are, and how they care little for any female life, we could cut the radicals support and get rid of them.

Calling all that get seduced by the sweet talk of pro lifers as woman haters or “murderers” won’t help get the reasonable people out of their clutches. Hence I do look for common ground. The less support those fringe groups have, the better.

Common ground is difficult to find. However, Roe vs. Wade protects all women’s right to privacy. The authoritarians who want to make a woman not have an abortion cannot do so, and the authoritarians who want to make a pregnant woman have an abortion, like in China, cannot do so. Roe vs Wade protects all women’s right to privacy regarding their pregnancies.

Someday, in the not too distant future, women probably will not have the right to reproduce whenever, and even possibly with whomever, they want. Protecting the rights of all women, those who want and those who do not want abortions, now, by constitutional social contracts, may be the only thing that prevents the coming reproduction restrictions. On the other hand, maybe the right to reproduce ought to be limited, in the interests of all life on the planet. Overturning Roe vs. Wade will open the door to reproduction restrictions, and enable Congress to make laws such as China’s.

Open question to women on this board if they want to have children:

Given what is happening in this country, and how there are only two doctors currently left who can help you out if something goes horribly wrong and you need to terminate late in the pregnancy, are you still planning to have children? Do you have children already?

I’d suggest that much of the “common ground” approach isn’t about compromise, but rather peeling off support from the anti-choicers. Its an effort to expose the gulf between the activists and the every day person who is generally anti-choice but doesn’t participate in aggressive protests. I think calling abortion a “tragedy” goes too far and moralizes abortion in a way which only serves the goals of anti-choice activists. The “Legal, safe, and rare” construction doesn’t, in my opinion. Rather, it just points out that there are effective ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies other than abortion. As long as the pro-choice side defines what “rare” means, it can be a useful way to find common cause not with anti-choice activists but with the middle-grounders, thus undercutting the political strength of the anti-choice movement. Granted, I don’t particularly trust most politicians on this. This tragedy is a good example why. Tiller saved lives. He saved families. The service he provides has been so grossly misrepresented that I’m angry at the pro-choice politicians who let the debate on late-term abortion get away from them. Simply put, they did a piss-poor job defending “Legal” and “safe”, so I’m not optimistic that they’ll stand up properly for “rare”.

I think Renmiri has a point here. One another blog, I see commenter after commenter saying things like “I’m pro-life, but I would never stop a woman from getting an abortion.” Which really means they’re pro-choice, only they’re deceived by a bunch of godbags into giving money to fund terrorism.

Mighty Ponygirl - I have two children. I am absolutely not considering a third, largely due to an increased risk (based on my past pregnancies) that a late abortion would become necessary. Part of this is due to my own queasiness with late-term abortions - I choose not to play roulette with my fetus - and part due to a definite worry that if I got past about 16 weeks when something went wrong, I’d get a shrug and a “sorry, you’ll have to take your chances”.

Indeed, I wish I’d had a magic mirror back when my second kid was born so I could take the OB up on his offer of a tubal ligation to go with the C-section.

I cannot inderstand why these folks thought that taking a life was OK. They are supposed to be pro-life.

Uhura: To them, “life” is defined as “pure white Xtian babies and people who look, sound, think, and act like us”.  Anyone who isn’t like them isn’t “life”.

Pro-fetus. Once they’re born, the heck with ‘em.