A presidential lesson on finding common ground on abortion

BY SUSIE WILSON

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

SEX MATTERS

It isn't often that I feel that the president is speaking directly to me. But last week, I felt he was doing exactly that.

Presidents are supposed to use their high office as a bully pulpit. It's part of the job description. Last week, President Obama used his to teach me a lesson about abortion, one of our most divisive social issues that simply will not "go quietly into that good night."

The lesson began with an e-mail from Jenny Y. Kaplan, deputy director of The White House Council on Women and Girls. She invited me to join a webinar/conference call last Friday with White House Policy Director Melody Barnes, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Kathleen Sebelius (who turned out to be a no-show), Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Joshua DuBois, and Health and Human Services experts.

The purpose of the call was to tell "stakeholders" — and I'm sure there were thousands invited to listen in or follow the discussion online — about the Pregnancy Assistance Fund, a new funding stream to support pregnant and parenting teens and adult women that was created by the Affordable Care Act (the official name for the health care reform law).

I really didn't think that this call and the new funding stream — $25 million for states, tribes, and territories for each of the next ten years — involved abortion until Melody Barnes remarked that the purpose of the Pregnancy Assistance Fund was to reduce the rates of abortion and create areas of common ground between its opponents and proponents. She said that the Fund was to make good on President Obama's promise of helping find an area of "common ground" between abortion's opponents and proponents, as he had discussed in his speech at Notre Dame in May.

Since Barnes did not elaborate, I looked up what the president had said on the subject: "The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?"

The president used the abortion issue to illustrate his point. He recounted that when he was a candidate, a strongly pro-life doctor objected to words that a campaign staffer had written on the president's website: that he "would fight right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose."

"I do not ask, at this point, that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words," the doctor wrote to President Obama.

The president wrote back and thanked him.

"I didn't change my position," he said, "but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me."

Then the president said to his Notre Dame audience: "When we open our hearts and minds to those who may not think like we do, or believe what we do — that's when we discover at the least the possibility of common ground."

"So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies...and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term," he concluded.

The Pregnancy Assistance Fund is a down payment on the second part of the sentence. It will create competitive grants that will address the critical needs of pregnant and parenting teens and women by providing "services desperately needed." The overarching goal of the Fund will be to help this vulnerable population succeed "as parents at home, as students at school, and as employees in the workplace."

States and tribes can apply for a grant, ranging from $500,000 to $2,000,000 through a lead agency, such as a health or education department of state government. The applications are due in early August (so listen up, New Jersey).

For me, common ground is preventing the need for abortions through good sex education that includes discussion of both abstinence and contraception and other strategies, like helping young people feel that they have a future beyond having a baby, permitting condom distribution in high-school health centers, and providing wrap-around programs, such as mentoring and tutoring, that occur beyond the school day and school year.

The Obama administration has budgeted $100 million for replication of evidence-based programs that will look a lot like the ones I've described, and the request for proposals require the use of "medically accurate" materials, which holds great promise.

In the past, I've often questioned the reason for programs for parenting teens, because I thought they might contradict the primary prevention message. I've advocated that the good aspects of these post-pregnancy-programs should be targeted at young women at risk for unplanned pregnancy before they become pregnant, not after the fact. But I've also wondered why many young women have a second or subsequent pregnancy after the first one.

In fact, during the webinar, I asked what type of sex and contraceptive education would be required in these statewide efforts. Would it be comprehensive sex education, which includes good instruction about the positive aspects of contraception, or would it be only about abstinence and secondary virginity (i.e., the Bristol Palin approach)?

The acting director of the Office of Adolescent Health said that the direction of instruction would be left in the hands of individual states. But she said that the materials had to be "medically accurate." So, I assume that condoms and the Pill cannot be ignored, or worse, still presented only in a negative light.

The president's eloquent words at Notre Dame moved me to think beyond my own way of seeing this issue. The goals of the Pregnancy Assistance Fund enlarged my vision on how to lower the stubbornly high rates of unplanned teen and adult pregnancy and abortion in the U.S. I'm willing to support a program to help pregnant and parenting teen girls and adult women, which is probably widely championed by those who strongly oppose abortions, if this new program helps to prevent abortions and subsequent pregnancies.

If we can all work together on making abortions rare, then perhaps opponents will come around to thinking that we should allow it to remain safe and legal.

But that is "common ground" further down the line. Let's get on with making the procedure rare.

This "stakeholder" wants to say, "Thank you, Mr. President. You are a good teacher."

And good luck to New Jersey in its effort to secure a grant from the Pregnancy Assistance Fund. I'll be cheering for you all the way.

Susie Wilson, former executive coordinator of the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers University's Center for Applied and Professional Psychology (now renamed Answer), is a national leader in the fight for effective sexuality and HIV/AIDS education and for prevention of adolescent pregnancy. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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