Rev. Anne C. Fowler, Rector of St. James Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts told me a story about a Catholic nun who once told her that she didn't know about the morality of abortion, but if we were going to have the right to abortion, then everyone should have access.

The moral of Rev. Fowler's story cuts to the core of the politics of abortion in America. Though nominally a right under Roe vs. Wade, decided thirty-six years ago today, the reality is that there are many obstacles-some insurmountable-to both receiving and providing abortion care in the United States. And yet, strange as it may seem, there remains a steady silence about abortion which, according to pro-choice leaders, is party due to the stigmatization of abortion. The result is that much of what passes for discussion is really just an elaborate avoidance of the subject.

The latest high profile exhibition of this avoidance is the "Governing Agenda" recently published by two Democratic Party-aligned Washington, DC-based think tanks, Third Way and Faith in Public Life. This document, two years in the making, and endorsed by a variety of prominent evangelicals; and the process by which it came into being have been met with both accolades and tough criticism. Intriguingly, the document does not actually discuss abortion--that most controversial of subjects on which it claims to have found common ground

Fowler, who has been a long time leader in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and has served on the board of Planned Parenthood adds that, "what is missing from this document, is any acknowledgment of women's moral agency and their capacity to make honorable sacred decisions for the welfare of their families and for themselves."

Melanie Zurek, executive director of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Abortion Access Project also hears the silence that surrounds abortion. While she also welcomes the possibility of expanding access to excellent sexuality education, she says that "abortion needs to be part of the conversation." But she avers that it
is also necessary to "remove the stigma against abortion that prevents that conversation from taking place."

But the notion of "abortion reduction" as presented by Third Way, Faith in Public Life and their evangelical allies, presumes that abortion is analogous to a dread disease, the incidence of which must be "reduced." This recasting of the language of antiabortion moralism into something akin to epidemiology, stands in sharp contrast to the mainstream religious traditions of tens of millions of American Christians, Jews, Unitarians and others which teach that abortion is often a moral choice, and that in any case women are fully capable of deciding when and under what circumstances to make that choice without direction from the state or other uninvited agencies. In short, abortion reduction is a term that is imbued with the very stigma that Fowler and Zurek say is a principal obstacle to engaging in a coherent conversation, even in disagreement.

The notion of "abortion reduction," has been a cornerstone of the so-called "broader agenda" of the conservative evangelicals promoted by Third Way and Faith in Public Life. But Rev. Fowler sees a certain "political expediency" at work:

Abortion reduction is not a position that recognizes the reality of many women's lives. I mean we talk about the incarnation. And the incarnate reality, the moral reality of women's lives is that sometimes abortion is the best moral choice.

Fowler, who has been a long time leader in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and has served on the board of Planned Parenthood adds that, "what is missing from this document, is any acknowledgment of women's moral agency and their capacity to make honorable sacred decisions for the welfare of their families and for themselves."

A major study by the Guttmacher Institute found that some 87% of counties in the U.S. lack a single abortion provider. The study notes a long term decline in the rate of abortion in the U.S. but could not determine whether this was because of increased access to and use of contraception, or the lack of access to abortion providers. And yet, even of the competing plans to reform the health care system currently being debated, and of the many ideas being discussed, Zurek says: "I don't know of any agenda that proposes to better integrate abortion into the health care system."

Much More.