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Online forum seeks “common ground”
An abortion rights website, RHRealityCheck.com, has launched an online forum dedicated to looking for common ground in the abortion debate. The mission statement says it will “provide interested readers with selected postings on the ongoing and often elusive search for common ground” and include “divergent interests and perspectives.” Moderator Cristina Page explains in her introductory post that they are looking for the “highest common denominator”:
Common ground isn’t a panacea, and isn’t supposed to be. Signing on to this experiment, and it is an experiment, doesn’t mean we will stop working to protect legal abortion or overturn it, depending on where we stand. And yet, even if we will not resolve our fundamental disagreement, we should agree on ways to prevent unintended pregnancy and help reduce the need for women and girls to have to make the, often difficult, decisions that accompany it.
The contributors include Serrin Foster with Feminists for Life of America, author David Gushee, Rachel Laser with Third Way, Chris Korzen of Catholics United and others.
Today’s post, from Corinna Lohser, is a pretty safe look at how to make adoption more accessible. Yesterday, Debra Haffner said we need to focus first on preventing unintended pregnancies. Chris Korzen contrasted MLK Jr’s rhetoric with the tone some pro-lifers take.
The problem I see so far is that finding common ground makes it hard to break new ground or move the debate forward. Civility is vital, but it is also pointless if it suffocates an authentic discussion of the deep tensions still there. Lohser’s post tread on no toes. Haffner’s post was actually called, “The Ground We Already Covered,” and took the tone of “surely we can all agree” without addressing the arguments of those who don’t agree. Korzen succeeded better, I think even from a pro-life perspective, in challenging his audience and bringing a new thought to the table.
But what do you think?
back to top25 Comments to “Online forum seeks “common ground””
Abortion is one of the most difficult issues in our society. Much of the posting on worldmagblog on the topic is incoherent posturing and not very useful or helpful.
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If you are pro-life, you are on higher moral ground–period. To descend to “common ground” may (in some cases) be to take the debate to a lower level.
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It’s a noble venture but doomed to failure.
Read the comments that have already been left there. The two sides are so diametrically opposed, that no common ground is possible. To liberals common ground means complete agreement with their agenda.
Notice the number of government programs they are pushing at that site. Government programs are not the solution–personal responsibility, integrity, and respect for life are the solutions.
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I think most of the posters on this site would rather not find common ground and I see that 2 out of 3 posts so far bear out my perception.
I think it is easier for both sides to label the other as zealot or killer rather than deal with the sometimes painful not so easy facts for people.
I think it is easier to sling rhetoric than to demostrate compassion.
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I see this as a divide that is very similar to that of abolitionist/slaveholder dispute a hundred odd years ago.
I don’t really believe that there is common ground.
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Most of the posts on the linked ‘common ground’ site would rather not find common ground. This is a pro-abort site. If they were serious about common ground, they should not have the site attached to a blatantly pro-abortion site.
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Coyote Blue,
With all due respect, I think that Christians have long been in the business of doing things to reduce the number of abortions, by encouraging people to have responsible sex or to abstain, encouraging and facillitating adoption instead of abortion, and countless other things…
In other words, they are willing to find and work toward this “common ground” but have gotten very little respect for it – as your post displays.
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I think it is a way for them to continue hiding from the issue of the human life of the fetus. I’m sure they would be glad to talk about anything but that.
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I agree AMPHIPOLIS.
It’s just an example of what the President offered at Notre Dame when he talked about how we need to talk about it but never really talked about any of IT (abortion, life, death,etc.).
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My daughter was born from an unintended pregnancy. My son also.
An unintended pregnancy is no tragedy.
An unwanted child is a tragedy. No matter the age of the child.
The common ground could also be the fact that 95% and more of abortions are for the inconvenience to the ‘mother’. Some of that per centage is due to the inconvenience to the ‘father’. And even worse is what ever percentage is due to the inconvenience of the “GRAND PARENTS’! And Democrats also cite the inconvenience to Society since the assumption is that all these kids would be welfare cases.
The common ground would also be that while more white babies get aborted in absolute numbers the higher percentage is black babies being aborted. 35% of all abortions are black babies while the proportion of blacks in the general population is 13 percent. 79% of planned parents abortuaries are located in minority neighborhoods. Almost half of black pregnancies wind up in abortion. If you think this is Over The Top look at the founder of of Planned Parenthood.
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The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, was a well-known proponent of eugenics, a program designed to cull those she considered unfit and racially undesirable from the larger population.
She said in 1921 that eugenics is “the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.” At another point, she lamented “the ever increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.”
The slogan of the eugenics movement was “more children from the fit, less from the unfit.” When Ms. Sanger referred to “the fit,” she was thinking of White Europeans. When she referred to “the unfit,” she was thinking of everybody else, meaning people of color.
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And if you think that racism in abortion advocates is ancient history then you need to google Autumn Kersey, Glenn Richardson, and realise that one of the out and out desires of the pro abortion group is the reduction in the number of minority babies.
And that passion extends to even covering up incest and statutory rape. And that is happening today. Right now. Not in some nebulous time in the past.
That is our common ground.
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To liberals common ground means complete agreement with their agenda.
This is differnt from the comment posters at wmb how?
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Monty,
Both of our children were.. uh.. “un-intended” too. The first was almost a honeymoon baby.
We still wanted both of them. We wouldn’t even have dreamed of giving them away for adoption, and killing them via abortion was just unthinkable.
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I am 46 and my wife is 43. We just had Bonnie about 9 weeks ago. She is and was quite wanted. Her big sisters who are 8 and 6 adore her and help out with her care.
I will eat my hat when anyone from NARAL or other abort groups ever says plain and simple “In the USA we have far too many abortions.” Since abortion clinics EARN THEIR MONEY from providing abortions they will never ever join us in calling for fewer abortions.
I have had several friends agonize over infertility. A wonderful couple I know had a foster child they were going to adopt and at the last minute a distant relative was found to be more qualified to take the child. Our crazy quilt of goofy restrictions (no non Indian couples may adopt American Indian children! Black social workers tend to exclude non-black would-be adoptive parents) help explain the popularity of traveling abroad for Chinese or Guatemalan adoptions.
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My daughter was an unwanted child (though we were wed when she was conceived). My brother’s third child (now growing up) was an unwanted child. My sister’s child (product of statutory rape) was an unwanted child, now a fine woman.
As Make It Man argues, many Christians perform positive actions to reduce abortions. However, I see no more seeking after “common ground” by the Christians who post here than by those they criticize, and the snarling at Coyote Blue (who posted a reasonable and compassionate comment) is tacky and nonconstructive.
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MIM
Spare me your indignation. You forget that I have been around this site for a few years now. You forget the number of times I have seen folks on this board argue against any contraception other than abstinence. You forget the number of times I have seen folks say that they would not get an HPV vaccine for their daughter because it might encourage her to have sex. Eleven people have written on this. All six “Christian” “conservatives” have said the same thing. Spare me any hint of righteous whining about lack of respect and have a long, long look in the mirror.
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So Coyoteblue, what do you think is common ground?????
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Monty
I think common ground could be found around preventing pregnancy in the first place. I know that many social conservatives say that condom programs and such are like permission slips, but we all know that people are going to sex. That’s just a reality. I would hope that social conservatives could find their way to acknowledging that you can deal with the issue without having to approve of the conduct.
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The key is to find a way to deal with the situation without encouraging the behavior. Just saying that kids will have sex is a cop-out, even though though some certainly will—with or without a condom. But if we’re not careful how we go about encouraging birth control, we can also increase the climate of pressure for those who don’t want to be sexually active. Sexual activity among minors should not be in any way encouraged.
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DJ,
You see, there, we found common ground already. I agree that we should not encourage kids to have sexual activity. I do think though that dealing with the issue in a realistic way and informing them (teens, I’m talking about here, not small children) of contraception on the market can be done without also saying to them that it’s perfectly ok for them to go on out and indulge themselves.
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Regarding #13:
Pro-lifers have long been willing to accept exceptions in the case of actual physical harm to the mother or for rape or incest, even though they do not necessarily agree with abortion in those instances. Pro-lifers have pushed for protection for minors from being exploited or abused in the whole process. Pro-lifers have asked that if there are going to be abortion clinics, then they should have to meet the same standards as all other medical facilities, so that they could save the lives of women who have severe complications during the procedure.
Those things are all compromises and the basis for “common ground,” but they have all been rejected by pro-choice people.
The reason that there cannot be common ground is that liberals have an absolute commitment to “choice” (when it comes to abortion) while the conservatives have an absolute commitment to “life.” As long as liberals deny that the fetus is a living human being entitled to protection, there cannot be common ground.
As I have asked before, if abortion is not wrong, then why should iit be rare? If it is wrong, then why should it be legal?
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Kyle that’s quite true. I think both sides see any give as a surrender that would lead to a total loss. Ergo no give in the argument — that’s the rationale I hear from folks on both sides of this debate.
Alot of things that are wrong are legal. That’s not a great basis to start a conversation about an issue that is difficult and has more grey in it than either side is willing to deal with.
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As Christians, we are commanded by God to DEFEND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH — not seek “common ground”* with people who think murder-by-abortion should be “legal.” This is not rocket science. Why do so many who claim to be Christians not understand that it is the Christian faith we are to defend instead of seeking some sort of mythical “common ground”? Might it be because such “Christians” are not really Christians? This certainly is a plausible explanation, no?
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
*Don’t misunderstand me, please. There is a “common ground” that we all stand on. That “common ground” is: we are all made in God’s image, we all live in God’s world, we’re all governed by God’s Law. The problem is, of course, that the unbeliever suppresses these Godly truths in unrighteousness, invents a world of his own that does not exist, and — well, St. Paul, by God’s inspiration, says it all better than I can in, among other places, Romans 1:18ff…
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John Lofton: How many unwanted babies do you think will be created and aborted while you smugly assert your moral purity and refusal to compromise?
Or do you even care?
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