Heads We Win, Tails They Lose: Why Obama’s Plea for Civility on Abortion Helps Pro-choice

Early this morning my daughter called to ask me what I thought about President Barack Obama’s comments about abortion yesterday in his commencement address at Notre Dame. She worried he’d been too soft and that by not stating his moral support for reproductive rights had instead signaled that he would not stand firm on policy related to abortion. Take a look at what he said and tell me what you think:

I replied to her that it was as good as we’d get from Obama, who clearly wants everyone to get along and doesn’t like confrontation. I wish he’d wax as eloquently about sexism and women’s human rights as he did about racism during his campaign. The controversy about race ignited by statements Obama’s minister made had threatened to be as divisive as the one he confronted at the Catholic university, and he used the first occasion to teach about race as well as to “tamp down the anger” as he has said he wants to do with regard to abortion. The disappointment for me was that he failed to elevate women’s reproductive self-determination to a similar moral high ground.

But in the realm of public discourse, Obama did women a great favor. The fact is that it is always a pro-choice victory when the debate is civil. Most Americans had rather not think about it, thank you very much, but when they do they tend to reason that decisions about childbearing are their own, not the government’s.

Similarly the opponents of choice lose when they marginalize themselves by extreme actions, such as carrying posters of full term stillborns and calling them abortions, splashing red paint on dolls, or committing violent acts.

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Still, it’s ultimately not enough just to say we should respect one another, though I agree we should. Respecting those with opposing views isn’t hard for those of us who are pro-choice; in fact it’s what choice is all about. But eventually we have to get on with policy making.

It’ll be up to pro-choice advocates to keep a pro-woman and proactive agenda in the president’s sights. We have to make it impossible for him not to do the right thing when it comes to supporting both preventive family planning and full reproductive justice, including abortion and choosing Supreme Court justice.

Obama’s plea for civility in the ensuing debate will help the pro-choice cause whether those opposed to abortion and reproductive rights are civil and respectful in their responses to the political agenda ahead or not.

1 Comment

  1. lee thompson on June 2, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    In the wake of the killing of heroic abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller, I want to share this article by Sunara Taylor. Here is an excerpt:

    “In his speech, Obama called for ‘fair-minded words’ on both sides of the abortion issue. He called on people to express their differences but not to demonize those who think differently than themselves. He called for ‘common ground’ and pointed to where he felt this could be found, as well as some of the challenges he sees in achieving it.

    To many, these were reasonable words. To many, the response to him by the overwhelming majority of the student body—together with a significant number of prominent Catholic figures—represents motion in a positive direction.

    But, when Obama speaks of ‘common ground’ on abortion, he is not standing on some neutral ‘middle ground’—he is accepting the terms of the anti-abortion movement and adapting aspects of a pro-choice position into that framework while gutting the heart of the abortion-rights position. In so doing, he is legitimizing and strengthening a viciously anti-woman program while both abandoning the much needed fight to expand access to abortion and birth control and giving up the moral and ideological basis on which the pro-choice position stands…”

    Read the full article,

    The Deadly Illusion of “Common Ground” on Abortion
    Response to Obama’s speech at Notre Dame on common ground and abortion

    at http://www.revcom.us/a/166/ST_on_Obama-en.html

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