Having spent much of my recent professional life working to build bridges across theological and ideological divides to make progress on issues like climate change, torture, and immigration, I worried about what would become of those bridges when the topic turned to abortion. We had been able to find shared cause around caring for creation, loving our enemies and welcoming the stranger, but could we find common ground on abortion?

We felt it was important to try. Our work across the ideological spectrum is motivated by the belief that faith compels all of us to engage in respectful dialogue with those with whom we disagree, and that there is far more that unites us than divides us -- even on the most contentious issues.

It's not always been easy, and the path ahead is still long, but whether in conversations with progressive Mainline Protestants, moderate Catholics or more conservative Evangelicals, analysis of recent poll data, or feedback from an online survey or a radio ad campaign -- we have found the answer to whether common ground on abortion is possible to be ‘yes.'

The first scientific inkling of this trend came in an August 2006 poll conducted by the highly-regarded Pew Research Center, which found that two out of three Americans (66%) support finding "a middle ground" when it comes to abortion. Only three-in-ten (29%) by contrast, believed "there's no room for compromise when it comes to abortion laws." A 2007 poll commission by the DC think tank Third Way captured the moral complexity of abortion. Contrary to traditional campaign war room assumptions that voters can be neatly divided into "pro-choice" and "pro-life" camps, this poll found that 72 percent of Americans said they believe that the decision to have an abortion should be left up to a woman, her family and her doctor, while 69 percent said that abortion is "the taking of human life."

In October 2008, the Faith and American Politics Survey, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and conducted by Public Religion Research, found that a majority of Americans believe political leaders can work to find common ground on abortion while staying true to their core beliefs. Even among the religious constituencies most opposed to abortion, such as white Evangelicals and Black Protestants, pluralities believe common ground is possible.