Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Common Ground Elusive in Abortion Debate

Common Ground Elusive in Abortion Debate

A couple good quotes in here. As I've said, I'm not a big fan of the trend to abortion-is-bad-but-choice-is-good rhetoric. But some of the legislation has its good points and lets the GOP box itself into a corner:

"It would have been easier to reach common ground a decade ago, when these issues were more bipartisan," said the institute's president, Sharon Camp. "Some anti-abortion politicians were for family planning, and they were able to bring the two sides together. Now, other than Harry Reid, it's hard to see any politician in Congress who fits that mold."

Cynthia Dailard, a Guttmacher policy analyst, said family planning and contraception access are difficult issues for some Republicans.

"They recognize it's not in their interest to come out against birth control in a major way — they'd alienate the vast majority of American women who use it," Dailard said. "At the same time, they don't want to alienate the part of their base that's extreme on this issue, so they're saying nothing."


Or if they are saying anything they're sounding extreme:

Referring to Reid and Clinton, Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council said, "Their idea of reducing unintended pregnancies is more sex education and distribution of contraceptives. ... That's not the solution, that's part of the problem."

"If they want to start promoting abstinence, fine — but they won't," Perkins added.

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