Are we that far off?

The unfortunate subtext of this debate is that both sides of the political Abortion Debate have made it so that the sides can’t be honest about the issue. Pro-choicers do actually want to reduce the number of abortions. It would be nice if we could say so without worrying about the words being twisted by opponents more interested in winning points rather than having an honest discussion.

Between Pro-choice and Pro-life , we both agree, after all, that it’s better not to have an unwanted pregnancy in the first place than to have an abortion, we both agree that America needs lots more birth control and lots more realistic sex education. We should both want emergency contraception to be widely available over the counter. We both want men to take more responsibility—to use condoms, for example. If you and I were actually designing policy, I’m guessing we’d see the practical piece much the same way: Ramp up that funding! Build those clinics! Make health insurance companies pay for birth control like they pay for v1agra. We’d ask stern questions about how that male pill is coming along and about when we might see some new options for women. We’d look at the experience of countries with lower rates of unwanted pregnancy, teen births, and abortion (every other Western industrialized nation); we’d interview experts and study the literature, we’d set up a bunch of pilot programs to see what worked best with what sub-populations.

And then would come the ad campaign. Mine would have pictures of cheerful girls and women: “At my local Planned Parenthood clinic, the doctors are great and birth control is free! They really took time with me and answered all my questions. Best of all, I can call anytime and talk to a nurse in total privacy. Thanks to Planned Parenthood, I’ll have a baby when I’m ready—but not till then.” Yours would show a spiky-haired, pierced, and tattooed girl looking sullen and miserable: “I stayed out all night and forgot to take my Pill. Now I’m having an abortion and it’s totally my fault. Go on, hate me, I deserve it! If only I’d listened to the doctors at Planned Parenthood.” Or maybe you could have a picture of a stern-looking nun standing in front of an abortion clinic: “Birth Control: Because Purgatory’s better than Hell.”