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Scott Lemieux of TAPPED is logically correct but, I think, tactically mistaken for dismissing pro-choice efforts to look for “common ground” with anti-abortion conservatives.

To follow up on Monica’s post about Dana Goldstein’s terrific article about the coming battle over contraception, it’s also important to emphasize what Republican opposition to contraception reveals about cultural conservatism.

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The problem with this line of reasoning is that it ignores the broader set of assumptions about women and sexuality on which actual opposition to abortion is based. Consider anti-choice Republicans, who consistently opposed expanding contraceptive use: Given the choice between reducing abortion rates and controlling female sexuality, they will always choose the latter. Thus the idea that contraception can be a means of achieving a ceasefire in the culture wars has always been a fantasy. Liberals and conservatives aren’t just divided by abortion but by broader questions of female equality and sexual freedom.

He said it here.

I agree strongly that there’s a hard core of social conservatives who just flat-out hate the idea of women having sex (or possibly instead hate the idea of men having sex with women) and “getting away with it.”

And for those people abortion is virtually a red herring, relevant only to the extent that abortion, like contraception, amounts to a get out of jail card on the “wages of sin.”

Fine. You’ll never reach compromise with those people.

The trick, though, is that the hard core hides behind a heck of a lot of people who are squishy on abortion, sometimes really squishy, but 100% fine with contraception.

Those people you can find common ground with. And for logical and tactical reasons it’s extremely important to do so.

The point of engaging in “common ground” rhetoric isn’t about getting to compromise with the acid right. It’s to flush them out, to drive a wedge, to starkly separate them from their nominal allies in the squishy middle.

Maybe 20 years ago someone from Operation Rescue very bluntly said it was their policy to oppose initiatives that only reduced abortions because, in his opinion, unless abortions continued in big, big numbers the majority of opponents would lose interest in the issue.

“Common ground” solutions like contraception availability amounts to calling their bluff.

Would it be great if the majority of people were willing to back abortion rights 100%? Oh yeah, definitely. But the bad guys wish the majority were as enthusiastic about letting women die of preventable pregnancy-related complications. Since neither side seems likely to get such support, it becomes a question of who can provide intermediate solutions that are most appealing to the majority in the middle.

I happen to think the most appealing intermediate, a.k.a. “middle ground” solution is pressing hard on contraception. First of all because all but the fanatics are comfortable with it, and second because while nearly all the squishy middle are squishy about the boogeyman of “abortion on demand” they’re actually extraordinarily tolerant of abortion as a backup when contraception fails. That’s exactly Terry Randall and the American Bishop’s worst nightmare and… I just can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t give it to them.

So. Bottom line: you can’t compromise with fanatics, but by appearing reasonable (heck, by being reasonable!) you can peel off millions and millions of their nominal supporters.

I say go for it.

Anna N of Jezebel, in a post on the general state of “men’s reproductive rights” activism, raises a persistent point that… I wonder… well, let’s go with the quote first

But sometimes it’s men who shut women out. In her thorough article for The Nation on reproductive coercion (which we’ve also discussed), Lynn Harris writes of “the striking frequency with which it is in fact young men who try to force their partners to get pregnant. Their goal: not to settle down as family men but rather to exert what is perhaps the most intimate, and lasting, form of control.” She cites one study finding that 15% of sexually active young women who visited reproductive health clinics had suffered birth control sabotage by a partner, and another in which 26% of a sample of teens in abusive, sexually active relationships said their partners were “actively trying to get them pregnant.”

She said it here.

So…

I’m wondering…

Y’know how all those “pro-life” types will do just about anything to stop women from getting an abortion… or even avoiding pregnancy in the first place… except, y’know, make it actually safe, easy, inexpensive, and socially acceptable for women to, y’know, actually stay preganant, have, and raise their unplanned, unwanted pregnancies?

And how instead they try and make it, and keep it, as close to social, economic, moral, even corporal punishment as possible? How they present it as the ultimate in dependency? In sacrifice? In pain, and exhaustion, and tedium, and frustration, and helplessnes? In stigma? In shame?

So…

I’m wondering…

How much do you think all that plays into this notion of coerced pregnancy as intimate control (a.k.a. as a form of partner abuse?)

I mean…

Not to put too fine a point on it but it’s well within society’s capacity to make unplanned, unwanted children (if not pregnancy itself) not just not just not punishment, and not just easy, but downright enjoyable. In the grand scheme of things it involves beginning social investment in children’s lives just a few years earlier than we do now — call it 3-6 months before birth instead of 3-4 years after.

And it’s not like the returns on that social investment wouldn’t be appropriate — I mean, even after 18 years of exacting all those “wages of sin” from the mother on behalf of traditionalist/conservatives, those same children will spend somewhere between four and seven decades as real adults — equal with all other adults for responsibility for the world. To invest in children as future fellow citizens instead of present punishments for parents would be to reap fantastic benefits in the future.

And…

Finally…

Not to put too fine a point on it but just how enthused might callow youths be to sabotage their partners pills or to pinhole their condoms if the outcome was not lasting “who’ll love you now, bebbeh?” control but a little more respectability, more rather than less independence, and a whole lot more support?

I’m not saying let’s all go out and encourage teen pregnancy. I am, however, saying that to the extent society would like to avoid teen pregnancy and, especially to also avoid pregnancy terminations, the incentives are currently… perverse.

Great sentence from Matthew Yglesias

The social convention that birth control is the financial responsibility of the female member of a heterosexual couple has long been problematic, and classifying family planning as a preventive health service will in effect do away with it.

He said it here.

It’s about the recently-passed Affordable Care Act, which despite the major disappointments of the Bart Stupak debacle and the lack of a public option looks like it’s going to start treating contraception as medical care instead of ZOMG!!!TEH!!!SEX!!!

Anyway, I just excerpted one good sentence. The rest of his analysis, including his remarks on the difference between how men and women categorize family planing, is also good.

Summary: The way “reducing abortions” is almost always framed distracts us from the more legitimate, and legitimately pro-choice issue of reducing the number of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies. Here’s what we should be doing instead. And why. And why.

Silvana Naguib, who’s now blogging at TAPPED says…

Ever since President Bill Clinton introduced his succinct position on abortion: “safe, legal, and rare,” the goal of reducing the number of abortions has been a stated aim of abortion rights as well as anti-abortion groups. Last year, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama promised the pope that he would make efforts to reduce the number of abortions in the United States.

But should decreasing abortion rates be a stated goal of the reproductive-justice movement? Aimée Thorne-Thomsen says no. She makes the case that we should instead focus on increasing all options for women, expanding their liberty to make the right choice for them.

She said it here.

I say no too, for basically the same reasons. Framing the issue in terms of numbers of abortions avoided is going about it completely backwards.

Back before Roe was handed down our argument was that abortion was necessary as a fallback for contraceptive failure and/or failure of personal autonomy and/or failure to use contraception due to lack of education, access, affordability, safety, or usability of contraception.

And the reason we framed it that way back then is that we knew that even when it became legal, is that abortion is more expensive, more time-consuming, more uncomfortable, and medically more risky than any other method of avoiding unplanned, unwanted pregnancies.

Point being that making abortion “rare” should only be a highly-desirable outcome of making unwanted, unplanned pregancies rare.

And the obvious way to get there has no, zero, none relationship to restrictions on abortion. Instead it has everything to do with making a variety of contraception options safe, legal, available, reliable, usable, and affordable for women and men. It has everything to do with comprehensive sex education that includes not just “birds and bees” biology, anatomy, and technique but also appropriate modeling of negotiation and respect for decision-makers not just regarding sex but regarding relationships as well. Heck, for extra credit you can even toss abstinence advocacy on top of all that.

And the result of those policies (ok, except maybe the abstinence part) really would make abortion rare. But as a result, not a goal.

Of course no matter how well all of the above might work there will still always be a need for the fundamental right to fall back on abortion. So no matter how rare it becomes abortion will always need to be safe and legal and there.

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Can I just add one more thing about reframing the question away from abortion (where secular and lay opponents work hard to keep it) and towards preventing unplanned, unwanted pregnancy (where they really, really don’t want to go?)

When the issue is framed in terms of abortion then an increase in the raw numbers is considered a “failure” and a decrease is considered “success.” That’s great for Popes and the rest of the nopes, so you can see why they love that way of looking at it.

If instead you start looking at it in terms of education, autonomy, and in terms of safe, affordable, available, useable, and reliable birth control then an increase in the number of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies becomes the point of failure and a corresponding decrease becomes success. And an increase or decrease in abortion becomes a sideshow.

Popes and other nopes prefer to keep the focus on abortion rather than unplanned, unwanted pregnancies because with the former they can pretend they’re part of the solution. With the latter there’s no way they can pretend they’re not part of the problem.