Choose Progress

I want to engage something Ed Kilgore says in a much-larger post on Southern politics:

While there may be exceptions in states like Louisiana and the border-state Missouri where there are extraordinarily high concentrations of both fundamentalists and Catholics, I don't believe there is a popular majority in any southern state for overturning basic abortion rights. But there are almost certainly big majorities supporting the contrived agenda of anti-abortion incrementalism: bans on "partial-birth" abortion, parental notification, restrictions on sex education in public schools, etc., etc. But in most cases, this stuff has majority support all over the country. So the smart pro-choice, not to mention Democratic, position in the South isn't that different from what we should be doing nationally: relentlessly, endlessly, redundantly focusing on the basic right to choose, and refusing wherever possible to be drawn into fights that label 70% of voters "pro-life" when they aren't in any meaningful sense.

I think that's a trap. So long as we're talking about the right to abortion, or even the right to the basic choice, we're on the losing end of this debate. According to the zealot across the screen, we're defending the basic right to terminate a potential child, and so long as we're that deeply on the defense (and since the right to choice is constitutionally-enshrined, we're eternally defending something already won), we're always the net losers. As a general rule, whenever one side is repeatedly pushing a symbolic confrontation, you can bet they, and not their opponents, are benefitting from it.

Democrats need to move that debate forward and refuse to engage on those terms. We need, as in so many places, to reemerge on the offense. But how do you break the impasse? I think Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics, has the right idea:

The Democrats could affirm that they are still the pro-choice party, but then also say what most Americans believe: that the abortion rate in America is much too high for a good, healthy society that respects both women and children. They could make a serious public commitment to actually do something about significantly reducing the abortion rate. Abortion is historically used as a symbolic issue in campaigns, and then forgotten when the election is over. Republicans win elections on the basis of their anti-abortion position, and then proceed to ignore the issue (and the nation’s abortion rate, highest in the industrial world) by doing nothing to reduce the number of abortions.

Democrats could vow to change that by uniting both pro-choice and pro-life constituencies around goals that could become the basis for some new common ground, i.e. really targeting the problems of teen pregnancy and adoption reform—so critical to reducing abortion—while offering real support and meaningful alternatives for women at greater risk for unwanted pregnancies, especially low-income women.

Nobody wants more abortions. While Democrats want women to have the choice and Republicans want to eliminate the option, everyone agrees that they're traumatic for the mother and a Bad Thing for all involved. If Democrats proved themselves serious about reducing abortions, it'd make Republicans look unserious in contesting choice. Because with a solid majority for some level of abortion rights, Americans would much rather be discussing how best to decrease their frequency.. And when evangelicals long taught to vote on choice are presented with two parties fulfilling their unborn compassion quota, Republicans lose their instant and unchallenged rallying point in the South. But don't trust me on the subject, look at how the President himself couches the issue. This is from the second presidential debate:

This is an issue that divides America, but certainly reasonable people can agree on how to reduce abortions in America.

I signed the partial-birth -- the ban on partial-birth abortion. It's a brutal practice. It's one way to help reduce abortions. My opponent voted against the ban.

I think there ought to be parental notification laws. He's against them.

I signed a bill called the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.

In other words, if you're a mom and you're pregnant and you get killed, the murderer gets tried for two cases, not just one. My opponent was against that.

These are reasonable ways to help promote a culture of life in America. I think it is a worthy goal in America to have every child protected by law and welcomed in life.

I also think we ought to continue to have good adoption law as an alternative to abortion.

And we need to promote maternity group homes, which my administration has done.

Culture of life is really important for a country to have if it's going to be a hospitable society.

Even he refused to engage the actual right to choice, preferring to thrash easily-demonized constructs on the margins of the issue. We can't let them stake out both the extremist position and the middle ground. Engaging abortion in the context of reducing them is good politics, and it's good policy. We've already proved we want them safe and legal. To win, we need the electorate convinced that we want them rare.

Update: Hillary gets it.