Abortion and the Democrats

The Democratic platform's new language on abortion--which several high-profile left-leaning faith-based types helped craft--has caused quite a stir.

David Brody posts the old and new language together and allows that, while hardly a paradigm shift, the change may put some anti-abortion folks who otherwise lean left more firmly in the Democrats' camp. Steven Waldman points out that, from an anti-abortion perspective, the language steps both forward and back: It names the goal of reducing the need for abortion, but it also eliminates the (in)famous Clinton language of "safe, legal, and rare." Amanda Marcotte makes the very important point that, by spelling out the need to help women who want to carry to term AND eliminating the word "rare," the new language actually does a better job representing pro-choice orthodoxy than the old language did. (If earlier debates about the distinction between "reducing the need for abortion" and "reducing abortion" had turned out differently, this would be a harder case to make.)

Steven goes on to say that the statement represents a missed opportunity for Obama to do some serious evangelical outreach. Mark Silk disagrees, arguing that Obama, and the Democratic party, are utterly pro-choice, and that it's unhelpful to try to talk your way out of that one. Elsewhere, Mark offers some helpful historical perspective on the argument the Dems are making--namely, that their policies will do more to actually reduce the abortion rate than the other guys' will. And Eric McFadden looks ahead to the Saddleback forum, calling on Rick Warren to ask Obama and McCain about "how women can be empowered to make other choices instead of abortion"--prompting Pastor Dan to push back against the use of the right's language and assumptions to frame an ostensibly left-leaning position.

Hmm. I've long been of two minds about this stuff. On the one hand, I'm in favor of anything that

• tempers the political power of the abortion mindless shouting match debate,
• encourages anti-abortion voters who lean left on economic and foreign policy to prioritize those beliefs and vote Democratic, and/or
  
• supports poor people.

On the other hand, the Wallis-Campolo-etc. trick of reducing the abortion question to a question of economic justice is awfully problematic. Insisting that disadvantaged women need to have real access to a full set of options is great as far as it goes, but it entirely (and, of course, deliberately) dodges actual, fundamentally moral questions about abortion itself. Still, avoiding those questions may be exactly what it takes to move the conversation forward, so a certain pragmatism may be helpful here. The bigger problem with this approach is that it's terribly patronizing: It implicitly paints women as helpless objects rather than decision-making subjects, a morally outrageous assumption and one that can't be good for progressive causes in the long run.

Anyway. I often have a hard time letting the philosophical stuff go in this sort of situation. I guess what matters most right now is this: The platform is likely to be at least modestly helpful in cutting through some of the abortion-debate crap, giving anti-abortion folks permission to stop being single-issue voters, and for crying out loud getting Barack Obama elected president. THAT all sounds good to me.

Meanwhile, having an abortion apparently does not cause mental illness. And more Protestants are avoiding artificial contraception in favor of natural family planning.