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A Step Forward
Abortion is a moral issue, felt deeply on all sides of the debate. That debate has also been deeply divisive, becoming a "third rail" of American politics. It often influences outcomes of elections, and therefore the direction of the country in other important policy areas. Consistent polling shows that most are between the polarized extremes, simplistically named "pro-life" and "pro-choice." A majority is both concerned, even alarmed, about the abortion rate in America, yet is hesitant to criminalize it. We have sorely needed new common ground that focuses on reducing the need for and number of abortions. Such common ground could be supported by both sides and affirmed by many in the middle.
This past weekend, the Democratic Party's 2008 platform language was approved. Many have been waiting to see their language about abortion for this election season. The 1996 and 2000 Democratic platforms contained a clause that read, "The Democratic Party is a party of inclusion. We respect the individual conscience of each American on this difficult issue, and we welcome all our members to participate at every level of our party." The draft language of the 2008 platform builds on that clause by supporting two choices that a woman might make--both of which the Democratic Party "strongly supports."
First, the platform states that the Democratic Party "strongly and unequivocally supports Roe vs. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right." That traditional position of the Democratic Party was to be expected.
Then the platform says the Democratic Party "also strongly supports access to comprehensive affordable family planning services and age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions."
The platform takes a significant step forward in affirming those whose moral convictions lead them to make a different decision than abortion. It reads, "The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman's decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs." That position will help make room for people, especially in the religious community, who have strong moral convictions about abortion. Many pro-life Democrats (and there are many in the party) have been looking to be heard, respected, and given a valued space in their own party (as pro-choice Republicans have in their party).
There is indeed some chance for common ground here in the mutual respect for different moral convictions and a shared desire to decrease the need for abortion. There is also a deep and growing conviction among evangelicals and Catholics that the "life issues" also extend to the 30,000 children who die globally each day from poverty and preventable disease, issues of genocide in places like Darfur, human trafficking, the domestic issues of poverty and health care, the foreign policy issues of war and peace, and even in threats like climate change. This election provides us with a pivotal opportunity to transcend old polarities and attempt to bring people together on common ground in a "consistent ethic of life" across a range of issues.
There is a "parallelism of choice" here in the Democratic platform that is a good and new direction that will make many people feel more welcome. The party is now on record in "strongly" supporting both a woman's right to choose abortion or to decide to have her child with promised support, creating common ground in agreeing for the need to reduce abortions.
All that is a step in the right direction: supportive of individual conscience, of the different decisions a woman can make, and of reducing the need for abortions. By supporting the fuller range of women's choice, the Democratic Party would be empowering more women, including low-income women who might like to carry their child to term for personal or moral reasons, but often lack the support to do so.
The rate of unintended pregnancies among poor women (below 100 percent of poverty) is nearly four times that of women above 200 percent of poverty. The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level is more than four times that of women above 300 percent of the poverty level. Three-fourths of women who have an abortion say a reason is that they cannot afford a child.
Policies and programs that focus on reducing poverty--also strong planks in the Democratic platform--would increase the economic stability of women and thus also help reduce the abortion rate. Policies that prevent unintended pregnancies through accessible family planning, including contraceptives, age-appropriate sex education-- including abstinence education--reducing teen pregnancy, economic support, accessible and affordable health care, adoption reform and incentives, are all critical and are pointed to in the platform.
The Democratic platform has taken an important first step. They took an important step beyond the traditional position on Roe vs. Wade by also supporting a woman's decision to have her child. They also sought and listened to input from moderate religious leaders.
Republicans have long made a strong opposition to abortion a central issue in their platforms and campaigns. Yet their symbolic commitment to making abortion illegal, even with a Republican in power, hasn't made any change in the rate of abortions in America. Religious leaders should also now urge the Republican Party to move forward. It's not enough to affirm their traditional support for making abortion illegal; they should also adopt the policies on reducing abortions. The bottom line for many Christians is how to save unborn lives.
Of course, it is now up to the Democratic candidate to interpret the platform and shape the issue. In an interview with <em>Christianity Today</em>, Barack Obama said, "I do think that those who diminish the moral elements of the decision aren't expressing the full reality of it."
Acknowledging that abortion is a moral issue, no matter what side you are on, is a way to respect the moral convictions of both sides, and begin to find some common ground. We could truly make reducing the abortion rate in America a nonpartisan issue and a bipartisan cause. It is a common-sense approach that could unite the vast majority of Americans around a goal that leverages support for women, instead of coercion, to dramatically reduce the number of abortions in America.
Jim Wallis is the author of The Great Awakening Click here to get e-mail updates from Jim Wallis 
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The abortion issue is one on which we must all agree to disagree. It is an inherent and moral right of each family to decide what is in their best interest for every woman should have compete autonomy over her body, regardless! Where we fail in this effort is in the lack of preventitive monies given towards education and the high costs attached to adoption as an option.
It amazes me that we spend way to much time fighting for the right a child to be born then we do fighting for the rights of those children who have been born and are left in the care of foster homes, facing homelessness, increased sexual and physical abuse, which are the cause of effects of a pro-life effort.
When we 'force' a woman to give birth to a child that is unwanted we most often 'force' that child into a life of neglect or at the very least we will return to a time where women were forced to obtain an illegal abortion, which often resulted in her death.
It should be further noted that when we begin to pick and choose what parts of our anatomy can be governmentally controlled then we lose the true democracy of this country and we quickly diminish any separation of Church and State.
If indeed your point of making abortion a moral issue, then which moral label should we follow. It seems your barometer is the christian morals which are based on a belief system that not everyone really believes in. Why don't we just stick to making abortion "illegal" for christians and leave us secular people to run with our way of life. It just seems that abortion appears to be a christian issue due to christians running around doing the "immoral" act after which it appears god seems to always forgive. As far as us secular people, most of us realize that two people doing the act has possible consequences such as a baby. It is the logistics of raising a baby that is an issue here. After all, at the time of birth the imprinting of learning begins (at least in a normal definition of learning). It is thus after this imprinting happens that makes taking away such an imprinting "inhuman" so to speak. In my opinion, it is somewhat strange when we send our kids to war and "snuff" them out. Why are the christian leaders leaving such "inhuman" things off the table?
Mr Wallis - GREAT blog. I hate to admit it, but I am beginning to develop a deep and genuine respect for the points of view you write about. I've gone from disagreeing 100% to disagreeing much less. Thank you very, very much for being a HuffPo writer. Please keep on keepin' on.
Ouch! Changing my opinion hurts! :-)
It has been a process for me too. After regularly visiting Townhall and reading Coulter, Medved, Novak and others I realized how out of place I was.
Among the terrible effects of the right-wing assaults on women is the assumption that it is the public's business what women do with their own bodies. It isn't the business of the public. The decision of whether to have an abortion is private. If we had the morning-after and similar pills readily available, and women could take one the day after unprotected sex, we would still nonetheless have lots of people trying to intrude into women's lives and tell them what to do with their own bodies. The assumption is that women are belongings, slaves, they are children, incapable of making rational, mature decisions, so society must tell us what to do and when to do it.
I would not "unite" around any political program focused on abortion. It's an absurd issue, and it's not properly a part of politics. It's a medical issue. It's like saying we should start a "movement" to try to stop people from having their tonsils removed. It's private, and it is none of the business of politicians or religions.
Anyone who is rational should devote their energies to saving the lives of people who die because they can't afford to go to the doctor, or the hundreds of thousands we have murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the millions who die from lack of food and water every day. T
he public needs to keep their hands, their laws, their governments and churches out of my reproductive system. It's mine, not yours.
I agree with you overall, but I thing there is some aspect of getting caught in semantics here. No one thinks abortion is a "good" thing. It would be best if unwanted pregnancies did not happen in the first place. The way for that desired outcome to happen is through sex education which emphasizes personal responsibility, respect for women particularly respect for teenage girls from teenage boys, alongside frank and factual sex education. And yes, abortion is affirmed as a right, but IIRC Al Gore in the 2000 campaign said he would have signed a standalone bill (no attachments added) banning late-term abortions unless the life of the mother was in danger.
I suggest this comes reasonably close to describing the Democratic platform on the issue, which is much more in line with the general will of the American public, while the right-wing controlled GOP party's dream is to ban abortions outright, and protect, for example, a PHARMACIST'S "right to choose" -- to fill or not fill birth control prescriptions, that is, etc. etc. One side seeks fairness and reason, the other side, in my opinion as the father of daughters, seeks to denigrate women in Jesus' name, which is in reality morally bankrupt.
I think abortion is a "good" thing.
I think any medical procedure that improves someone's life is a good thing. They sometimes take place in unpleasant situations, but the procedure is a good thing.
Hip replacement, tumor removal, lasix, kidney transplant, abortion, etc.
If it improves the patients' life it's a very good thing.
Edit to earlier post:
Access to birth control as a personal right is also essential, forgot to type that. (Finis)
There has never been any tolerance for debate within the Democratic party in regards to abortion. The party stance has always been "abortion on demand"! We, in the US, abort over 800,000 fetuses per year. I have never heard a pro life person say an abortion should not be performed when the mother was raped or her health at risk. I do know four women whom have had abortions and not one fit the previous stated situations. All four women who did have that abortion, did not use the pill, the condom, an iud, or norplant. They used abortions as their choice of birth control. England did a study a few years back and found that over 85% of abortions were done for birth control only with no physical/health threats to the mother. Yet the Democrats stance has always been or percieved to be "Abortion for all with no questions asked".
What a country!
ceindependence, it's not anyone's business why a woman chooses an abortion. Stay out of our wombs!
Darcy,
If you had the guts enough to say "NO" you wouldn't have to worry very much.
Some of us guys have the guts enough and are good enough not to let it happen.
Respect is something that many young men never learn and women pay for that.
But women also don't say no either:(
Aside from the single valid point you accidently made that abortions != birth control, your post and two slices of bread will give you a steaming cow pucky sandwich.
Oh, and if you "have never heard a pro life person say an abortion should not be performed when the mother was raped or her health at risk" then pull the potatoes out of your ears. My God, Dan Quayle lost that debate to a 15 y.o. female interviewer so many years ago, remember? The religious right actively supports fundy pharmacists who "morally" refuse to fill Plan B "morning after" pills or for that matter birth control pills. That's just the tip of the iceberg. For the fundies birth control = abortions.
Why shouldn't there be "abortion on demand?"
Women will have to ask the likes of YOU if they can live the life they want?
Most countries similar to the USA as to economic levels, including our neighbor Canada, have much lower rates of abortions. In parts that is due to the wide range of availability of health and social services via the government, governments that have sound sexual responability education for all, open and cheap access to birth control, keep strong separation of church and state, abilities to keep families together and generally different attitudes about sex.
The recent platform proposals for the Demos as to abortion are centerist and reflect a balanced range of views of a majority of Americans. Of course, access to health care, safe products and food, economic security, keeping out of unessary wars and so on are also very deep moral issues too that all of us have to face, not just the relative few that may consider bearing a child or an abortion.
This is a great leap forward as far as dealing with the actual problem is concerned. Unfortunately, it's not about the real problem. The so-called pro-lifers aren't really having a "love affair with the fetus" as Dr. Joycelyn Elders famously said. They're having a love affair with "I'm going to heaven and you liberals are going to hell." Their extreme stance on birth control, their fanatical insistence that gay marriage will doom "the family," their inane refusal to support any legislation that would actually help families, are all part of the same world view. As for losing abortion as a wedge issue, the GOP would sooner name Putin as McCain's running mate.
Absolutely right, Iwaxanatroi!
Abortion is a women's issue, not a moral issue. Like any rational person would agree, it's preferable to use adoption rather than abortion, but if a woman chooses not to carry a child in her womb, *it's her body.*
Religious nutbags and commentators should learn a real moral lesson: "Mind your own business."
Yay, rah rah, Dave24! Religious nuts have a very hard time minding their own business.
Unfortunately, it seems that most people are not rational about abortion. But I agree with you. And I also agree that the real problem is preventing unwanted pregnancies. But now, with the bush admin trying to designate birth control pills as abortion, that fight is going to be even tougher.
And another observation: It seems to me that the anti-abortion faction is not just anit-abortion, they are anti-pregnancy-prevention and anti-quality-of-life. They don't seem to be nearly as concerned with how a child is cared for once it escapes its mother's womb as they are about making sure it is conceived and brought to term. If they had their way, all of us women would be having babies every 9 months from puberty to menopause, and if we happened to let an egg get away, we'd be thrown in jail for killing a potential baby. (sorry - digressing)
Women's issues are often moral issues. The moral issue here is that Jim says 3/4 of women in poverty who abort their children WANT their babies, but abort them because they can not afford them. That sounds like a moral issue, with poverty being that issue. If women are aborting a baby simply because they don't want children or for other personal reasons then your argument holds up, but that's not what seems to be implied here. I'm pro-choice, but I'm also anti-abortion. While it's been nearly 10 years since I debated the topic, there are health and potentially emotional and mental issues attached to abortion that also become a moral issue.
Black and Hispanic women have a high rate of abortion. It's no secret that both cultures often have religious backgrounds that forbids abortion so these women walk around with guilt and shame from aborting a baby they would have liked to have birthed, but they can't get these guilty feeling to leave because they don't have money or resources for mental health services.
Abortion is not a "womans" issue, and one of the stupidest strategic moves made by our side is to paint it as such.
Men are effected to a certain degree by an unwanted pregnancy. A huge proportion of women getting abortions are married, or in committed relationships. A man's life can be severely impacted, though never as much.
The whole anti-abortion rights movement is based on a hatred of women's sexuality outside of procreation , and making them "pay" for being sexual. I was told this repeatedly by the Operation Rescue terrorists that I blocked from clinic doors 20 years ago.
You could argue with these people forever, shooting down every one of their arguments. Eventually, every single one of them would say "If a woman wants a choice, she should choose to keep her legs closed." Every single time. My girlfriend used to stand next to me and time how ling it took to get to it.
Men must not abandon women in this fight, which is really a church-state argument
While we are on the subject of compromise let's consider Leviticus 17:11:For the life of the flesh is in the blood. The pro-life crew is fond of using science in the form of MRI to show the human attributes of fetuses to establish that there is life. Science has also proved that a fertilized egg does not include blood until approximately 16 days after fertilization. Therefore, according to Leviticus, there is not life until at least 16 days after fertilization. It necessarily follows contraception in any form, including the morning after pill, is not abortion because there is no life involved. It also follows that stem cell research does not involve life.
Great piece and I agree with you--this is a step in the right direction. Most of us are not "pro-abortion" and I like how the DNC went beyond affirming their support of Roe v. Wade. With all of the options out there, unplanned pregnancies should be rare and abortion should be the last option a woman/girl considers.
I see some are so anti-religion that they can't see the facts. Abortion is a MORAL issue. Morality does NOT equal religion. I'd hope we all have morals! I know some religious nutjobs like to think Christians are the only ones with morals but, us thinking folk should know better and not take offense to the mere mention of the word! I went through an unplanned pregnancy and having or not having the child were both issues of morality for me. I had to decide where I stood on several issues and how I'd feel about it afterwards. It wasn't about assessing where the church stood, I had to decide how I felt about it! Morality has to do with right/wrong, ethics, etc., I'd hope MOST decisions are MORAL ISSUES!
I'm getting sick of the "abortion debate" being the defining partisan issue of our time. After 8 years of disastrous leadership bankrupting this country, it would be nice if we could put the question of if a tiny clump of cells should get the same rights as a sentient person.
I don't care about finding common ground. Perpetuating the debate from any side only reinforces its dubious importance.
I wish these complex issues were more simple - but the complexity compounds with politics...........
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/01/27/abortion-and-partisan-politics/
Once a pro-life gentleman advised me I was "pro-abortion." I was dismayed. I don't actually know anyone who is "pro-abortion," although I am aware that in a nation where abortion is safe and legal one natural consequence is that some pregnant women will have safe and legal abortions.
I would never think of referring to someone who is pro-life as "pro-knitting needles," although one natural consequence of making abortion illegal is that some pregnant women will render themselves infertile or die of hemorrhage or sepsis as a result of their approach to ending an intolerable pregnancy.
Where is Jung's Transcendant Function when we need it?
I've never had a problem referring to those opposed to abortion rights as being "pro-dead women."
The US is founded on the principle of a separation between Church and State. Therefore, its laws need to avoid codifying religious views.
The opposition to abortion as a 'moral' issue is one based in profoundly religious viewpoints. It needs to be remembered that not everyone is religious, and many of us do not in fact see abortion as a moral issue at all.
No one is forcing those opposed to it to have abortions - so get out of the business of those who don't have moral objections. Abortion should be available on demand, no questions asked, up to the point at which the foetus could survive outside the womb. Up until that point, it's a part of the woman's body, and what she does with it is entirely her business. Simple as that.
As previously stated, morality and religion are not the same thing. Abortion is a moral issue and for those of us who believe in God it is a religious issue. With that said I am pro-choice because I believe once the agonizing decision is made to terminate an unwanted pregnancy the ensueing abortion is a medical issue that should be handled in a safe manner. Moral issues include- choices of right and wrong, ethics, integrity, etc. Those cover all people not just religious people.
I agree that religion and morality aren't the same thing. But I really don't see abortion as a moral issue any more than any other elective surgery is, provided that the foetus can't yet survive outside the woman's body. I also think that the 'when does life begin' debate is a red herring. It really doesn't matter: the only thing which matters is whether the foetus is still, effectively, an integral part of the woman's own body. If it is, then her decisions about what to do with it have no significant moral dimension, since her body is her own.
Also, I do think that the pro-choice lobby do their argument a logical disservice by always characterising abortion as an agonizing decision. For many women it frankly isn't agonizing, just as it often doesn't lead to regrets or grief. Different women, depending on their own religious, cultural or ideological beliefs, as well as their reasons for choosing abortion, will react differently. But for some it's not a great dilemma: and neither should it be.
Even with access to good and free or affordable contraception, and the education on how to use it, sometimes women will find they're pregnant when they don't want to be. What they do after that is their decision, and they really shouldn't be made to feel that it SHOULD be a great moral crisis.
I have a simple position that I give to anti-abortion people I know. I tell them when the country can 100% of the time provide:
1 quality healthcare for all children and mothers.
2 and healthy neighborhoods to raise children.
3 Good schools for every child in America.
4 An affordable college education to any child who works hard in school.
5 A free or cheap birth control system which is 100% effective.
6 A foster care system where no child is abused or simple lost (like thousands are now)
7 And a promise that every child given up for adoption would find a loving household regardless of age, race, or disability.
Once we can promise a great and safe future to every child and mother I will being to consider the "morality" of abortion.
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