First Thoughts: Cediing the Common Ground on Abortion

Barack Obama and his "useful idiots," those so-called "moderate" and "progressive" evangelicals who claim to be pro-life but nevertheless support and defend the most unabashedly pro-death president in U.S. history, speak disingenuously about finding "common ground" on abortion. Let's keep the barbaric practice legal, they say, but try to find effective "abortion reduction" strategies. True pro-lifers, meanwhile, are already implementing an "abortion reduction" strategy that has proved so effective that abortion advocates persuaded an Oklahoma judge to declare it unconstitutional.

To the absolute horror of those callous souls whose livelihood depends on the continued widespread practice of abortion on demand, the proliferation of ultrasound machines at crisis pregnancy counseling centers has resulted in a marked decrease in the number of women choosing to have abortions. Now, if the goal is to "reduce the number of abortions" being performed in the United States, why would anyone claiming to seek "common ground" have a problem with this result? Keith Pavlischek suggests an answer.

Well, here, it seems, we have reached a certain common ground on abortion. Both the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute and the pro-life Focus on the Family agree that the widespread use of ultrasounds for women contemplating abortions will reduce the number of abortions. The use of ultrasounds in pregnancy counseling, in other words, is a proven “abortion reduction strategy.”

The most charitably disposed might think that this is common ground that pro-life and pro-choice Americans have been looking for. It is something we can come together on. After all, isn’t that what Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo, Joel Hunter, David Gushee and the rest of President Obama’s ostensibly pro-life moderate and progressive Evangelical supporters [have] been trying to sell us this past year or so? Let’s not focus on outlawing abortion or issues related to the legal protection of the unborn, they have been telling us. That promotes division. The pro-life emphasis on legally prohibiting abortion gets in the way of finding common ground. You know the routine.

The problem, of course, is that anyone who has been paying attention knows full well that Obama and his crew are not interested in reducing the number of abortions. How do we know this? We know it because Obama and crew keep telling us that they are not interested in reducing the number of abortions. Sooner or later you would think these moderate and progressive Evangelicals would get the message.

You will recall last August when certain evangelical pro-lifers (so-called) were invited to the Democratic Convention to pitch their “abortion reduction” strategy. They wanted the Democrats to have Obama and the Democratic party platform to go on record supporting efforts to reduce the number of abortions. This, they thought, would be a compromise. The party and Obama could still be pro-choice—keeping abortion legal—and yet be sufficiently committed to reducing the number of abortions to have common ground with pro-lifers who were after the same thing. This also, conveniently enough, might allow Obama to cheery-pick a few pro-life voters in November.

The problem was that Obama and the abortion lobby would have none of it. That sort of language, they understood, might suggest that there was something morally questionable about abortion. And so, they offered an alternative to the “abortion reduction” language. Obama and the Democratic Party will be for a reduction in the need for abortions. And, of course, the “reduce the need’ crowd won the day and the “reduce abortions” crowd were sent packing. But, of course, Campolo, Wallis, Hunter and Gushee—already deep in the tank for Obama—tried to spin the whole thing as a victory for those seeking common ground. They thus shamefully perpetuated the false impression that Obama and the Democratic Party were now really in favor of reducing abortions. After all, why quibble over semantics? Obama and the abortion lobby had found their useful idiots.