{"id":974,"date":"2009-07-23T14:36:32","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T14:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html"},"modified":"2009-07-23T14:36:32","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T14:36:32","slug":"why-the-new-abortion-common-gr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html","title":{"rendered":"Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;common ground&#8221; abortion legislation<a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/nation\/article\/0,8599,1912284,00.html\"> re-introduced today <\/a>does seem to represent real political progress.<br \/>\nI&#8217;m on jury duty today so I haven&#8217;t been able to do any extra reporting but looking over the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/breaking-the-common-ground-abo.html\">summary of the legislation<\/a>, known as &#8220;Ryan-DeLauro,&#8221; here&#8217;s what provisionally strikes me:<br \/>\nFor starters, last time Planned Parenthood would not sign on to this bill. This time they did.  So the legislation pretty much has the full support of the pro-choice world. (See the full list after the jump)<br \/>\nAt the same time, the bill&#8217;s sponsors were able to get some serious pro-life people to endorse legislation that includes expansion of family planning and sex education. We now have a clear division in the pro-life community between those willing to promote contraception as a piece of the puzzle to reduce unintended pregnancies and those who won&#8217;t. (Jill Stanek here explains <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/pro-life-leader-jill-stanek-ex.html\">why most pro-life groups oppose contraception<\/a>).<br \/>\nNo major pro-life groups endorsed the bill, and Doug Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee calls it &#8220;a scam&#8221; and especially criticizes portions of the bill that will end up funding groups like Planned Parenthood which, in addition to doing the family planning work they&#8217;ll get money for, also performs abortions. As of now, I don&#8217;t even see endorsements from Democrats for Life or Feminists for Life.<br \/>\nThe pro-lifers who signed tend to be on the progressive side but the group does include a few who are moderates or even cultural conservatives, such as Rev. Joel Hunter of Lakewood Church, Rich Cizik, the former vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals  and  Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.  Significantly, Frank Page, the immediate past President of the very conservative Southern Baptist Convention, &#8220;tentatively&#8221; supported the bill. (Full list of pro-life supporters below).<br \/>\nThe pro-lifers got something of great importance to them: more support for women who want to carry a baby to term. Specifically:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A National Information Campaign to &#8220;promote accurate and positive information and messages on adoption and the benefits it can bring to children and families.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>An increase in the adoption tax credit from $10,000 up to $15,000<\/li>\n<li>Money to increase the availability of ultrasound equipment. (Many pro-lifers believe that the more women who get ultra sounds, the more will choose continuing a pregnancy rather than choosing abortion)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Joel Hunter explained his support:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We need an all-encompassing approach: comprehensive sex education with an abstinence emphasis, better access to contraception for low-income women, and better enlistment of parents in preventing teen pregnancy. We also need to increase awareness about adoption and ensure that pregnant women and new families have the support they need to finish school, put food on the table and feel confident that their new family can thrive.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This breakthrough resulted from many years worth of bridge building and discussions, with the group <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thirdway.org\/\">Third Way <\/a>playing a key roll. They adopted a simple principle:  rather than forcing compromises, let&#8217;s focus mostly on what we already agree on.<br \/>\nNonetheless, it took a certain leap of faith by certain pro-lifers that the sex education money won&#8217;t go toward polarizing liberal causes like condom distribution in public schools and by the pro-choicers that the pro-adoption efforts won&#8217;t evolve into efforts to ing a &#8220;coerce&#8221; women into choosing that path over abortion.<br \/>\nThere&#8217;s a lot in this bill that is easy to support &#8212; who doesn&#8217;t want better maternal health care? &#8212; but each side had to take some risks, too.<br \/>\n(Below is the list of pro-life and pro-choice sponsors)<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nIn addition to Third Way, I hear <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faithinpubliclife.org\/\">Faith in Public Life<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/sojo.net\/\">Sojourners <\/a>and Catholics <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholicsinalliance.org\/\">in Alliance for the Common Good<\/a> all rustled up religious sponsors.<br \/>\nAs far as I can tell, the pro-life endorsers of Ryan-Delauro are:<br \/>\n\u2022 Brian D. McLaren, Author\/Activist<br \/>\n\u2022 Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good<br \/>\n\u2022 Charles C. Camosy, Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics, Fordham University; Coordinator, Curran Center for American Catholic Studies Conversation Project<br \/>\n\u2022 Dr. David P. Gushee, Distinguished University, Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University<br \/>\n\u2022 Dr. Frank S. Page, Pastor, Taylors First Baptist Church, Taylors, SC; Immediate Past President, Southern Baptist Convention<br \/>\n\u2022 Dr. Joel C. Hunter, Senior Pastor, Northland &#8211; A Church Distributed<br \/>\n\u2022 Dr. Paul de Vries, President, New York Divinity School<br \/>\n\u2022 Dr. William Shaw, President, National Baptist Convention<br \/>\n\u2022 Glen Stassen, Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary<br \/>\n\u2022 Joe Battaglia, Founder and President, Renaissance Communications<br \/>\n\u2022 Jonathan Merritt, Faith and Culture Writer, and National Spokesperson, Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative<br \/>\n\u2022 Lisa Sharon Harper, Author, Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican&#8230;or Democrat; Cofounder and Executive Director, New York Faith &amp; Justice<br \/>\n\u2022 Lisa Sowle Cahill, Professor of Theology at Boston College; Past President, Catholic Theological Society of America<br \/>\n\u2022 Nicholas P. Cafardi, Civil and Canon Lawyer; Professor and Former Dean, Duquesne University School of Law<br \/>\n\u2022 Rev. Adam Hamilton, The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection<br \/>\n\u2022 Rev. Derrick Harkins, Senior Pastor, Nineteenth Street Baptist Church<br \/>\n\u2022 Rev. Gabriel A. Salguero, Executive and Public Policy Advisor, The Latino Leadership Circle<br \/>\n\u2022 Rev. Joseph A. Darby, Senior Pastor, Morris Brown African Methodist Episcopal Church<br \/>\n\u2022 Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference<br \/>\n\u2022 Richard Cizik, President, The New Evangelicals<br \/>\n\u2022 Ronald J. Sider, President, Evangelicals for Social Action<br \/>\n\u2022 Sojourners<br \/>\n\u2022 Vivian Berryhill, Founder and President, National Coalition of Pastors&#8217; Spouses<br \/>\nAs far as I can tell, the pro-choice endorsers are:<br \/>\n\u2022 American Civil Liberties Union<br \/>\n\u2022 American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists<br \/>\n\u2022 Anti-Defamation League<br \/>\n\u2022 Catholics for Choice<br \/>\n\u2022 Family Violence Prevention Fund<br \/>\n\u2022 Frances Kissling, Visiting Scholar, Center for Bio-ethics at the University of Pennsylvania; Former President, Catholics for Choice; Member of the Board of Directors, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice<br \/>\n\u2022 Guttmacher Institute<br \/>\n\u2022 Jewish Council for Public Affairs<br \/>\n\u2022 Kate Michelman, Former President, NARAL Pro-Choice America<br \/>\n\u2022 Marilyn Cohen, Executive Director of the Sioux City Jewish Federation; Former Director of the Emma Goldman Clinic for Women; Co-Author of &#8220;A Search for Common Ground on Clinic Activism&#8221;<br \/>\n\u2022 NARAL Pro-Choice America<br \/>\n\u2022 National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy<br \/>\n\u2022 National Coalition of American Nuns<br \/>\n\u2022 National Council of Jewish Women<br \/>\n\u2022 National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association<br \/>\n\u2022 National Partnership for Women &amp; Families<br \/>\n\u2022 National Women&#8217;s Law Center<br \/>\n\u2022 Nicholas P. Cafardi, Civil and Canon Lawyer; Professor and Former Dean, Duquesne University School of Law<br \/>\n\u2022 Planned Parenthood Federation of America<br \/>\n\u2022 Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism<br \/>\n\u2022 Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice<br \/>\n\u2022 SIECUS &#8211; Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States<br \/>\n\u2022 The Abortion Care Network<br \/>\n\u2022 The Episcopal Church<br \/>\n\u2022 The General Board of Church &amp; Society of The United Methodist Church<br \/>\n\u2022 The Rebecca Project for Human Rights<br \/>\n\u2022 Third Way<br \/>\n\u2022 Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations<br \/>\n\u2022 United Church of Christ<br \/>\n\u2022 Women&#8217;s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual<br \/>\nNeither:<br \/>\n\u2022 Faith in Public Life<br \/>\n\u2022 Melissa Rogers, Visiting Professor of Religion and Public Policy, Wake Forest University Divinity School; Former Director, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life<br \/>\n\u2022 NETWORK- A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;common ground&#8221; abortion legislation re-introduced today does seem to represent real political progress. I&#8217;m on jury duty today so I haven&#8217;t been able to do any extra reporting but looking over the summary of the legislation, known as &#8220;Ryan-DeLauro,&#8221; here&#8217;s what provisionally strikes me: For starters, last time Planned Parenthood would not sign on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro) - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro) - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The &#8220;common ground&#8221; abortion legislation re-introduced today does seem to represent real political progress. I&#8217;m on jury duty today so I haven&#8217;t been able to do any extra reporting but looking over the summary of the legislation, known as &#8220;Ryan-DeLauro,&#8221; here&#8217;s what provisionally strikes me: For starters, last time Planned Parenthood would not sign on&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-23T14:36:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro) - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro) - Steven Waldman","og_description":"The &#8220;common ground&#8221; abortion legislation re-introduced today does seem to represent real political progress. I&#8217;m on jury duty today so I haven&#8217;t been able to do any extra reporting but looking over the summary of the legislation, known as &#8220;Ryan-DeLauro,&#8221; here&#8217;s what provisionally strikes me: For starters, last time Planned Parenthood would not sign on&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2009-07-23T14:36:32+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html","name":"Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro) - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-07-23T14:36:32+00:00","dateModified":"2009-07-23T14:36:32+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/07\/why-the-new-abortion-common-gr.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why The New Abortion Common Ground Bill Matters (Ryan-DeLauro)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}