Abortion’s Middle Ground? Reducing Them

You might think these volleys come from a progressive crusade against poverty, gun violence, or poor access to health care. Surprise: This recently concluded campaign in Atlanta was mounted by Georgia Right to Life, part of a new front in the anti-abortion movement that links abortion to a sinister plot to destroy black America.

Give credit to the abortion-is-genocide vanguard for this at least: They have demolished the usual left-right boundaries in their mixing of cries against racial injustice (typically a liberal cause) with anti-abortion politics (usually a cause of social conservatives). And by bringing new national attention to disproportionately high rates of abortion among African Americans, they have succeeded in shining a spotlight on distress in black communities.

Whatever our differing views of abortion, we can probably agree it’s good that attention is being paid to pain in a segment of the American population that already suffered too much — even if this campaign employs hype and distortion to make its larger point. Whether we see abortion as the problem or the manifestation of a whole host of other social malignancies, the door of opportunity could be opening wider toward healing progress on the issue that is surely the most persistent argument-starter in the ongoing culture wars around faith and politics.

When negotiating isn’t possible

In recent years, there has been more talk about “abortion reduction” — from religious and secular voices on both sides of the issue and from places as prominent as the Obama White House.

If the idea hasn’t caught on widely yet, it’s largely because the nature of the abortion debate has poisoned the possibilities for negotiation and common ground. Indeed, the two sides have projected their positions as non-negotiable: the right to life itself vs. a woman’s authority over her own body.

For one side, the issue is often viewed as profoundly religious, and with no shades of gray. If you’re a devout Catholic, for instance, you are taught by the Vatican that abortion is a grave evil. If your faith guides you to the conviction that abortion is killing, what ground is there to give? Yet couldn’t that same commitment to saving lives also compel one to join the cause of abortion reduction, even while working for more comprehensive prohibitions?

This is not Pollyannaish fantasizing. Any rigorous study of abortion dynamics reveals significant payoffs for both the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” movements if the country undertook a sincere effort to reduce abortion.

For the Christian conservatives who have led the charge against abortion, reduction strategies promise the victory of fewer pregnancies ended — not as resounding as overturning Roe v. Wade perhaps, but nothing to scoff at. Another likely outcome: a more responsible approach to sex, such that fewer pregnancies come as unwelcome surprises, and that fewer pregnant women find themselves without the partners they need to feel confident about bringing a new child into the world. This has “family values” written all over it.

From a liberal perspective, the beauty of the abortion-reduction equation is that many of the tactics are right out of the progressive playbook. As pro-choice organizations emphasize, unintended and unwanted pregnancies are the driving force behind abortion. Accomplish some or all of the following, and down go abortion rates:

•Better access to information and contraception.

•Improved crime prevention, and thus fewer rapes.

•Better health care for mothers and children.

•Better schools and economic prospects.

These are all worth striving for, and we can thank Georgia Right to Life for demonstrating that abortion reduction would also address, directly or indirectly, glaring racial inequities.

Of course, walking through this door promises pain as well as gain, for both sides. For political and rhetorical reasons, defenders of legal abortion are loath to concede anything negative about the procedure. Why would they make a point of reducing something that isn’t, in their view, bad?

As typified by the reaction of Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life, abortion-reduction talk does not go over well with some anti-abortion activists, either. Davis, an African American and Christian, coordinates outreach to the black community. Abortion-reduction talk, she says, is a “smokescreen” to obscure the real problems: the legal availability of abortion, and what she sees as the targeting of predominantly black areas with Planned Parenthood clinics.

Davis and her allies wield some alarming statistics. African Americans have about 39% of the country’s abortions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite making up 13% of the population. Nearly 40% of black pregnancies end in abortion. Add up all the major causes of death among blacks — heart disease, diabetes, cancer, violence, etc. — and they do not match the number of abortions. This has fueled the new rhetoric bombs such as “womb lynchings” used by pastors, including Stephen Broden of Dallas, and “genocide,” frequently uttered by Christian anti-abortion activists such as Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr.

Behind the numbers

Yet look deeper, and you’ll see that birth rates are higher among African-American women than the population as a whole — 16.5 births per 1,000 black women in 2006, compared with 14.2.

Refuting the targeting charges, Planned Parenthood reports that only four of the 15 abortion providers in Georgia are located in predominately African-American areas, and only two of the 10 in metropolitan Atlanta are situated in largely black neighborhoods.

Given the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, it’s understandable that Davis and fellow activists smell a conspiracy. Sadly, the historical record furnishes too many hateful statements by demagogues and eugenics promoters about the imperative to keep black population in check through abortion and sterilization. That hardly means that today’s abortion providers have the same vile motives.

Actually, there probably is a conspiracy behind black abortion rates. But the “conspirators” don’t wear lab coats. They’re the forces and factors conspiring to cause unwanted pregnancies, a deficit of sexual responsibility (by men and women), and a shortage of moral appreciation for the value of human life in all its many forms.

Taking on all these invisible conspirators won’t bring the same visceral gratification as lobbing word grenades at the “evil abortion industry” or “pro-life wing nuts.” But this is where practical progress is waiting to be made if Americans are brave enough to go beyond arguing about abortion and actually do something about it.

Tom Krattenmaker is a Portland, Ore.-based writer specializing in religion in public life and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors. His book Onward Christian Athletes was published last fall.