All across America battles have been waged and millions of dollars have been spent by the pro-choice and pro-life movements. In the struggle for dictating the laws of the land, it seems as though little has changed except the deterioration of dialogue and relationships. Often those on the far left and the far right can be heard demonizing their opponents by labeling the other as baby killers or women haters. Meanwhile abortions continue, children born into poverty continues, and unintended pregnancies continue.
So when Obama began talking about finding common ground in the area of abortion, I was deeply pleased. His desire to bring folks together to find places of agreement filled me with hope and resonated with ideas that I had already been thinking about.
That work is continuing and many courageous people are stepping forward (often at the cost of being attacked by their friends) and extending their hand to their opponent. They are joining together with the people like me in the middle who see this issue as a complicated one, but who agree that we should find ways to reduce abortions. I personally identify myself as pro-life, however I'm not so sure that we should criminalize abortion.
Just in the last two weeks there have been some exciting developments and conversations taking place about common ground on abortion. I encourage you to check out the new blog: www.rhrealitycheck.org/commonground as well as watch this civil and sincere dialogue of Jon Stewart and Mike Huckabee discussing abortion.
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Mike Huckabee | ||||
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Update:
This isn't so much an update as a really great article that I forgot to reference. It's about a similar effort occuring in Canada.
"If we made abortion illegal tomorrow it's not going to change anything. I am not concerned with the law," said Yvonne Douma, the executive-director of the British Columbia-based organization.
Her group's goal is to "create a Canada where demand for abortions dwindles and decreases until there's none left -- not because it was forced upon anyone, but because that is what women choose."