If politics, as the saying has it, is the art of the possible, then agreement is the first step toward the realization of possibility; each side has to give its blessing to an endeavor. But does this blessing need to be, literally, a blessing? The circumstances surrounding the introduction of a long-awaited bill show us just how entangled religion and politics are where women’s health is concerned.
There were abundant blessings for this week’s triumphant rollout of the Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act, also known as the Ryan-DeLauro bill, after its two chief sponsors in the House, Reps. Tim Ryan (D-OH) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). These two legislators, who disagree on the question of whether abortion should be legal, worked with the centrist think tank Third Way’s culture program to find common ground among supporters of reproductive rights and opponents of legal abortion. The result, though, is pretty much what NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, and other reproductive health advocates have been arguing for years: prevent unintended pregnancies through comprehensive sex education and birth control, and support economically struggling women and their families.
The Ryan-DeLauro bill now has the support of the major reproductive rights groups, a blessing the effort had previously lacked. Two years ago, Third Way unveiled “Come Let Us Reason Together,” (CLURT) which argued for common ground between progressives and evangelicals on contentious issues like abortion and gay rights. It endorsed (at least in spirit) the then-existing version of the Ryan-DeLauro bill, and touted the blessing of evangelical figures who said they were rejecting the single-issue, rancorous politics of their religious right brethren. They would, they pledged, abandon the trench warfare of Roe v. Wade, and instead try to find practical solutions for reducing abortions.
Stigmatizing Abortion?
The reluctance of reproductive health groups to sign on to CLURT, and to endorse the previous version of Ryan-DeLauro, stemmed in large part from what might broadly be called stigmatization concerns. The CLURT report, as Catholics for Choice former president Frances Kissling said last year, “confessed the sins of the left. But it never said and you, on the right, better get over your hostility to secularism.”
Use of terms like “moral tragedy” in discussions of common ground on abortion further rankled reproductive health advocates, and they worried that some provisions in the previous bill stigmatized women who chose abortion. While reproductive health advocates have argued for economic support for women and families, their framing is aimed at supporting women who plan or choose parenthood; on the anti-choice side the framing has been aimed at supporting women so they will choose to carry an unintended pregnancy to term (implying that if they don’t, they’re perpetuating the moral tragedy).
But this week, Kissling gave her blessing to the Ryan-DeLauro bill, as did many others, including NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and Catholics for Choice. Why? For pro-choice endorsers, the new bill eliminates some of the troubling informed consent provisions contained in an earlier version, and makes ultrasound provisions less onerous. And it contains, essentially, much of what reproductive health advocates have more than blessed—they have defined it—for years. As Planned Parenthood’s vice president for public policy Laurie Rubiner said at the press conference, “Ninety-seven percent of services we provide are primary and preventative care to mostly low-income women.”
The new bill mirrors the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act, by authorizing funding for comprehensive sex education programs; it would reauthorize the Title X family planning program; and it would expand family planning coverage under Medicaid. It also includes other economic supports for low-income women and their families.
Without a doubt, the bill’s pro-choice endorsers have long advocated for the ground zero of reducing the need for abortion: preventing unintended pregnancies through comprehensive sex education and safe, effective, and affordable contraception. From the side that opposes legal abortion, though, there are many voices who are squeamish about contraception, sex education, or both, on religious grounds.
That’s why even though the bill received dozens of blessings from a wide range of religious and reproductive health groups, many of them came with caveats, or meted out blessings of certain parts of the bill but not others. Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, for instance, noted that “preventing the tragedy of abortion requires elected officials to find common ground and support comprehensive efforts to help women and families choose life,” but did not mention contraception or comprehensive sex education, which the Catholic Church opposes. David Gushee, a leading voice in the evangelical center, and one of the early endorsers of CLURT, said in endorsing the legislation that its failure to challenge legal access to abortion “is regrettable from my own pro-life perspective.”
From the other side, SIECUS noted in its statement supporting the new version of the bill, “We recognize that the framing of this bill creates discomfort for some in its potential to stigmatize the legally recognized right to abortion. We share your concerns, but believe the important pieces of this bill warrant our support.”
The Ryan-DeLauro bill received many blessings this week, and Rachel Laser, director of Third Way’s Culture Program, noted that one quarter of President Barack Obama’s faith-based advisory council were among the supporters.
But what does it mean when a religious blessing is required to address an urgent public health issue? While it’s surely a positive development that some religious figures are shifting away from demonizing common sense, scientifically-driven reproductive health policy, the way the introduction of this bill has unfolded also speaks volumes about the escalating role of religion in shaping public policy. Will religious blessings be required to achieve the art of the possible, and will their absence make sound policy impossible?
Tags: abortion, abortion reduction, ryan-delauro
First, I would observe that consensus is harder to reach than compromise: It seems that consensus is impossible at this point with regards to abortion and so under the pressure of very real life demands we are forced to pragmatic compromises... That is never, ever comfortable or thoroughly consistent, but it can, nevertheless be true and in good faith. Let us hope...
Second, the questions in the final paragraph are the ones that this article contributes to the discussion; I hope that they will be addressed in this forum:
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"But what does it mean when a religious blessing is required to address an urgent public health issue? While it’s surely a positive development that some religious figures are shifting away from demonizing common sense, scientifically-driven reproductive health policy, the way the introduction of this bill has unfolded also speaks volumes about the escalating role of religion in shaping public policy. Will religious blessings be required to achieve the art of the possible, and will their absence make sound policy impossible?"
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I suggest that unpacking the value-laden assumptions and language in which the questions are framed is necessary before one can honestly and in good faith engage the challenges and attempt to answer the questions in useful manners. The language in which the author frames her questions brings other questions to my mind:
• What is "common sense" and who is allowed to have it? What are the biases involved in this laudatory descriptor?
• What does it mean to be "scientifically-driven"? Is science a motive, a driving force? Is it value free? Is it pure and true...and moral? How far is/are Science and Scientists to be trusted?
• What is "demonizing" and who does it?
• What is "religion" and what part does it play in life, in society...in government?
• What axe does this author have to grind that causes her to layer her language and concepts in this manner, seemingly to hide her agenda behind prima facia descriptive language?
In point of fact, I may share the author's agenda (or one closely aligned); but the rhetorical choices she makes with her value-laden language gives me pause and causes me to look for the hooks and sharp-edges of her implicit agenda. Until it is laid out in a straight forward manner and I see that she is addressing a common, human issue/challenge, rather than addressing her audience in a rhetorical, political manner, she will not gain my trust.
Are you similarly concerned with the big role that religious activists played in abolition, labor rights, and civil rights? Do you think we would have been better off without such involvement? If so, fine: you've got a consistent standard. It's not a standard that would have helped achieve progressive change in this country, but at least it's consistent.
However, if you're OK with activism in those cases but not this one, why? What's the case-relevant distinction? I suspect a double standard, though I'd be interested in hearing your take in case you've got an argument I'm not thinking of.
Abortion is the law of the land . Just like slavery of my African ancestors, Bad laws, both, Parts of the church were either silent or complicit in the nefarious trade and business.Only when mankind(people for you PC folk) is held up to the standard of being made in the image of God do such practices end.Abortion on demand will end up like the American slave syatem... on the ash heap of history.
Ryan/DeLauro is a good piece of legislation that addresses many of the important issues, including comprehensive sexuality education, family planning, and support for pregnant and parenting women. Preventing unintended pregnancy, ensuring abortion access and funding family planning initiatives are intertwined issues and should be dealt with together. But this bill is only a piece of the reproductive health and justice agenda we hope to see.
As we said in 2005, in our Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Abortion as a Moral Decision, there is a moral imperative for access:
"The ability to choose an abortion should not be compromised by economic, educational, class or marital status, age, race, geographic location or inadequate information. Current measures that limit women’s access to abortion services—by denying public funds for low-income women; coercing parental consent and notification as contrasted with providing resources for parental and adolescent counseling; denying international family planning assistance to agencies in developing countries that offer women information about pregnancy options; and banning medical procedures—are punitive and do nothing to promote moral decision-making."
In addition to reducing unintended pregnancies, we must work together to address the circumstances that result in the decision to have an abortion. Poverty, social inequities, lack of education, sexism, racism and unsupportive relationships can severely restrict a woman's ability to freely choose.
Rev. Debra W. Haffner
Argument the first: The most ethical argument against abortion is the idea that all life is sacred. (The real reason many christians are against abortion is that they think sex is evil and women should be punished for having it. You don't see the anti-abortion crowd pushing for mandatory child support for single mothers.) The problem with the 'all life is sacred' argument is that all religions - christianity not excepted - have a long history of killing in the name of their gods. And it's still going on. The truth is that human life is cheap. We spend more money in this country developing and deploying means of human destruction than all the other countries in the world combined. I don't see the anti-abortionists saying anything about that.
Argument the second: The biggest problem facing ALL life on this planet is the ever-increasing human population, which is causing the extinction of thousands of other species on our planet every year. This has been going on since cavemen wiped out the wooly mammoth and is only increasing. If we don't decrease out population drastically, the only non-human animals left on the earth will be pets and meat sources. From the point of view of biodiversity, every human either aborted or not conceived is a chance for another species to survive. And if you believe that god created us all, squeezing out the rest of his creation for our own expansion cannot be considered doing his work.
If you want to be an ethical/moral religionist, you need to work to end war, reduce human population and leave pregnant women who don't want children alone.
wow what a weirdo.too bad this person's mother didn't decide on abortion!!!!!!
Can't disprove the arguments, so you insult the messenger. You sound like a True Believer (see Eric Hoffer)
FYI, it's belittling and pompous when you say that the opinions of religious groups are against common sense. The content of common sense is a product of religion/world view/culture, not vice versa. Name calling like "against common sense" really means "against my common sense" which just means "poo poo for disagreeing with me."
It was an interesting post; next time please don't betray it by showing opinions that you seemed to be trying to withhold... or just show your colors in the beginning and make it an opinion piece.
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