President Obama’s still-to-be released common ground agenda in the
abortion conflict is already having a profound and largely overlooked effect: it has exposed deep fault lines in the pro-life movement.
Obama’s focus on reducing the need for abortion has been embraced by
some practical-minded pro-lifers who are tired of decades of
intransigence, and who also appear jaded by the counterproductive
“culture of life” sloganeering of President Bush. Pro-choice Bill
Clinton presided over the most dramatic decline in abortion rates in
the history of our country after all. Pro-lifers Reagan, Bush I and
Bush II did not. For an emerging movement of reasoned,
results-oriented, non-ideological pro-lifers results count. If a
pro-choice president produces pro-life outcomes, they ask, are they
any less worthy?

For the traditional pro-life establishment, however, they are. In
fact, to them, Obama’s common ground call is perceived as a threat.
Since Obama takes them, their beliefs and their proposals seriously
they have been forced to justify some fundamental hypocrisies,
the kind that have in the past led to rhetorical victories and little
progress (unless you count fundraising). Consider, for example, the
clash between pro-life rhetoric and reality when it comes to crisis
pregnancy centers, a much-cherished initiative of the old guard
pro-lifer. A recent report, “A Passion to Serve, a Vision for Life,”
released by the Family Research Council is a valentine to the nation’s
3,000 crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs). It commends them for
communicating “to women and their families that their lives are
valuable and that their needs – emotional, psychological, medical,
spiritual and practical – can and will be met .”

The report details the intense efforts CPCs undertake to persuade
women to not choose abortion. The main message broadcast to those
coming to a center is: “support is available, you do not need to
discontinue this pregnancy for financial reasons.”  But beside the
ultrasound image women are provided and medically inaccurate pitch
against abortion, the most persuasive arguments available to CPCs, as
any staff or volunteer will readily admit, is that women facing crisis pregnancies can make it work by depending on a network of publicly-funded social services. For the vast majority of women convinced to become mothers, CPCs are a gateway to the welfare system.

Theoretically, a pro-life, common ground approach then would be to
take seriously the benefits of CPCs as, essentially, referral agencies
to services which can support women who really do want to keep a
pregnancy. And also to say, "Let’s make sure the right social services
are in place – those that women really need – and that they are
well-funded."

And here’s where that old-guard rhetoric runs into the brick wall of
common ground (and fact-based) reality. The Family Research Council
valentine to crisis pregnancy centers may sound pretty, and even
compelling, but on closer examination is it sincere? In effect, groups
like the Family Research Council as well as most pro-life politicians
have been two-timing their devoted crisis pregnancy center partners.
While professing their love for their work, they batter the social
programs on which the crisis pregnancy center movement places its
trust.

The Family Research Council carefully details in its report the many
federal and state-sponsored programs to which CPCs direct women
including: Head Start, Medicaid, Local Health Departments, Legal Aid,
State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-Chip), State Health
Departments, Women Infants & Children (WIC), and the Department of Job and Family Services.

Yet when it’s suggested that support for these very agencies should
merit pro-life support, the Family Research Council lines up in
opposition. Michael New, a senior fellow at the Family Research
Council, recently launched an attack on the progressive, pro-common
ground, pro-life group, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good
(CACG) for suggesting just that. CACG conducted a study linking states
that provide more generous services to the poor with lower abortion
rates. CACG suggested that to reduce abortion rates pro-lifers should
consider the policies traditionally championed by Democrats–
extending publicly-funded social services to poor pregnant women–
rather than exclusively focus on restricting abortion. But suddenly,
the programs that are so effective when used as resources by crisis
pregnancy centers, are suspect. New writes,

“[The study’s] questionable methodology and inconsistent results
should give pro-lifers serious pause before they enthusiastically
embrace higher welfare benefits as a strategy to reduce abortion.
Furthermore, there is little peer-reviewed research which indicates
that more generous welfare benefits have a significant impact. [Other
studies] find that welfare benefits only have a marginal impact on
abortion rates. However, as I will discuss later in the response,
there exists plenty of evidence from studies in reputable peer
reviewed journals that various types of pro-life laws reduce abortion
rates.”

New himself didn’t miss the chance to praise the work of crisis
pregnancy centers; he weighed in when the Family Research Council
report came out, writing,  “PRCs have offered real alternatives to
literally millions of women facing crisis pregnancies. Countless women
regret their abortions. However, the testimonials in FRC’s latest
report are evidence of the positive impact of the life-affirming
options offered by many pregnancy-resource centers.”  Of course, the
“life-affirming” options are now no more than a euphemism for the
“welfare” which, according to New, has a “marginal impact on abortion
rates.

New’s attack on the Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good’s policy
proposal is a reflection of an all-consuming hypocrisy plaguing an
ideologically entrenched pro-life establishment. Crisis Pregnancy
Centers rely on a welfare system to support the women they persuade
to become mothers while pro-life groups and politicians actively
undermine the very programs and agencies that are the only resources
available to support many women who want to have a child, as CPCs
know.

In 2007, The Children’s Defense Fund published its Congressional
Scorecard on the best and worst legislators for children. The
organization scored congressmembers votes on many of the policies that
help pregnant women decide whether to parent or abort. The votes were
on Head Start, increasing the minimum wage, reauthorizing and
increasing funding for S-CHIP, increasing funding for children with
disabilities, job training, Medicaid funding, helping youth pay for
college, and tax-relief for low-income families with children. Based
on their votes on these issues, the Children’s Defense Fund ranked 143
congressmembers as ‘the worst” for children. Of the 143 worst
legislators, 100% are pro-life.

The long-established, and long-dominant pro-life complex speaks out of
both sides of its mouth, praising crisis pregnancy centers and yet
disparaging the social services upon which they rely. In the upcoming
months, the Obama administration will be revealing its common ground
agenda and one part of it promises to be supports for pregnant women.
It is just the sort of agenda designed to appeal to a nascent
pragmatic and moderate pro-life movement. Let’s hope this rising voice
of reason can lead the crisis pregnancy center movement to support an
administration plan to help struggling families and indigent pregnant
women.  Praise for CPCs can’t come packaged with attacks on the very
supports they rely upon. It not only defeats common ground; it defeats
reason.

Joseph Schiedler, president of the Pro-life Action League, wrote an
op-ed in USA Today claiming pro-lifers who embark on the search for
common ground betray the pro-life cause and, in making his case,
reveals the classic characteristics of pro-life schizophrenia. He
writes,

“There is no evidence that increasing social programs — such as
low-cost health care and day care, college grants and maternity homes
— will impact a woman’s abortion decision. It is rare in our
experience to find a woman who says the reason she is choosing
abortion is that she doesn’t have day care, or that she’d rather go to
college…More than 3,000 pregnancy centers in the U.S. are ready to
help a woman with material needs, emotional support, counseling and
medical care. Anyone who wants to stop abortion should promote these
centers.”

Once we begin to till the soil of common ground, these contradictions
and inconsistencies will become clearer. It is then that pragmatic
pro-lifers may realize there will be unlikely partners along the path
to genuine pro-life victories.