Another sensible common ground plea gets ignored by pro-life groups

Pro-Choice Senator Hillary Clinton and Pro-Life Senator Harry Reid have written a simple "common ground" prescription for those hoping for real solutions to our nation's high abortion rate. Most interesting in their call to action is that they place blame for the high rates of abortion squarely at the feet of our nation's pro-life groups and their campaigns against the proven abortion reduction approaches. The Senators write, "Ironically, those advocating the loudest for an outright ban on abortion are too often the same people who oppose prevention initiatives and instead support making contraception less accessible, particularly for low-income women who are more likely to have unplanned pregnancies. For example, a recent analysis by the non-partisan Guttmacher Institute revealed that South Dakota is one of the most difficult states for low-income women to obtain contraceptives. Unfortunately, the same hypocrisy applies when it comes to funding programs that support women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term. President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress have promoted budget cuts for a wide range of programs that would provide critical supports for low-income pregnant women and their children."

Finally, people with bigger bullhorns (including honest pro-life Americans looking for real solutions to reduce abortion, like Reid) are beginning to identify the real culprits. The organized pro-life movement has always used "abortion" as a fig leaf to cover an agenda that's far broader, and more sinister, than most Americans understand. It's also an agenda that's leading to more abortions. Plain and simple: Reducing abortion is not a goal of the right to life operatives, otherwise they'd have backed Clinton and Reid "Putting Prevention First Act" months ago when it was proposed. What the right to life movement really works toward is a culture of strife (ie: their strategy is to stand outside of clinics berating women for the hard choices they face when in fact they are the very ones who fought to keep contraception out of her hands). But the American public is catching on, including true pro-life Americans...