The Potential and Challenges for Common Ground on Abortion

Discussing the recent US Supreme Court decision Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization (Dobbs), a colleague commented, “I am not in favor of abortion, but I don’t want to see women in back-street, illegal clinics either.” I feel the same way. I understand that women who want abortions advocate reproductive rights; however, who advocates reproductive rights for the unborn? Does it have to be “us” versus “them”? Can we build bridges of empathy for common ground? Can we be a better nation by the process of “listening, asking and understanding”?¹

To be empathetic² is to be curious, get outside our bubbles, and interact with those who do not think as we do. Start with making others feel respected in conversations, even if we do not agree with their positions. Suspend judgments. Acknowledge and explore our privileges and biases. It may lead to shared experiences or understanding differing views on abortion. Is there a shared project, no matter how small, in reproductive rights that could provide a beginning common ground?

Religion is not necessarily a stumbling block for common ground. For example, per the Pew Research Center, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Hinduism generally oppose abortion rights. The groups on the opposite end of the spectrum (e.g., the Presbyterian Church (USA) and Conservative and Reform Judaism) support abortion rights with few or no limits. There are also religious groups with unclear positions on abortion (e.g., Buddhism, Islam, and Orthodox Judaism).³ Additionally, individual members may have opinions that do not equate with the official position of their religious group.

An article based on Pew Research Center data has a chart with the heading “85 Percent of American Voters Think Abortion Should Be Legal in Some or All Circumstances.”⁴ On closer examination, however, this statement is somewhat misleading. The number of people who support legal abortion actually decreases with gestational age. For example, 26% of Americans indicated that abortion should be illegal at the gestational age of six weeks (i.e., illegal with some exceptions, illegal, or illegal in all cases with no exceptions). This number increases to 33% for 14 weeks gestation and 48% for 24 weeks gestation.⁴ Therefore, the changing views of Americans on abortion for various stages of gestation may provide fruitful ground for discussion.

But what if seeking common ground on abortion requires uncomfortable listening? On the one hand, there can be the denial of women’s bodily autonomy; on the other hand, there can be the denial of the unborn’s life—both of which may seem offensive. Finding common ground requires us to listen to each other’s rational perspectives, to look for a Venn diagram of next steps. We must start with listening without judgment.

There are two significant challenges for finding common ground: values and views on death and the beginning of life. For example, liberals and conservatives share values such as caring, liberty, and fairness; however, conservatives also tend to embrace others, such as loyalty, authority, and sanctity.⁵ Liberty is a key value for advocating women’s autonomous decisions about abortion; these reproductive rights are defined from the mother’s standpoint: “Who has a right to tell me what to do with my pregnancy and my body?”

Liberty and sanctity are key values for advocating the reproductive rights of the unborn, especially for conservatives, although there is the group Democrats for Life of America (https://www.democratsforlife.org). Underlying sanctity are views on conception and death. Philosopher R. George states, “Each of us who is now an adult is the same human being who was at an earlier time an adolescent, a child, an infant, a fetus, an embryo and a zygote.”^6(p191) Death at any point along this continuum is still death and deprives fetuses of their future life—the good things in life they could have had—if they had lived.^7,8

Philosopher M. Jali provides another perspective:

It is very difficult to justify any specific time as the point at which a conceptus becomes a person and as such a bearer of moral rights. The pro-life group draws the line as to when the conceptus becomes a person too early. Moderates would find it difficult to accept that a group of cells (regardless of their potentiality) without any form has to be considered as a person. On the other hand, it is also difficult to accept the notion that personhood begins at birth as indicated by the pro-choice group. This view disregard[s] the potentiality towards actual human life that occurs throughout pregnancy.^9(p30)

Egregious actions after Dobbs may spur attention for finding a different way. Criminalizing or creating fear of reprisals in the medical management of spontaneous abortions (i.e., miscarriages), ectopic pregnancies, and noninduced intrauterine fetal death as well as other pregnancy-related issues do not serve either side well and may prompt searches for common ground. On the other hand, introducing legislation with no restrictions on abortion even to the point of birth may be just as egregious.^10,11 However, we could find common ground issues of valuing and investing more in the well-being of our children and families—including in the child tax credit, early childhood education, childcare, and workplace protections for equitable pay, family leave, and suitable medical benefits for pregnant women—ways to support women and families and decrease abortions.¹² Creating the policy environment for such actions will require skillful coalition building, especially in states where such programs have not been supported or funded.

Are these discussions from prolife and prochoice perspectives beneficial for our democracy even if we do not find common ground? Stating and defending beliefs while exploring others’ beliefs increase our cognitive capacity. Looking at principles such as justice and equality, we practice our civic duty. Civic care¹ through reasonable disagreements guards against one common perspective becoming entrenched without challenge, decreasing our ability to make good democratic decisions. These disagreements require patience, curiosity, and a willingness to provide a platform for people to be heard. Years from now, will we look back and question whether we created good public policy on abortion?⁶ Could slavery in this country have ended earlier if we had done more civic caring?

On November 15, 2022, the Washington Post’s Post Reports podcast released an episode¹³ about the “covert abortion pill pipeline,” a pregnant young woman in a loving relationship, her initial ambivalence, and her residence in a state where abortion is illegal. The story is tragic for the impact on her and her pregnancy and best understood by listening to the podcast. In the end, where have we failed this woman and her boyfriend; where have we failed the little one she aborted and they buried? Exploring these questions will not be easy, and building “common ground is not for the faint of heart.”¹⁴