Abortion

Of course, President-elect Barack Obama's most urgent task is to repair an ailing economy. But one of his important promises was to end the cultural and religious wars that have disfigured American politics for four decades. A good place to start the healing process: our decades-long conflict over abortion. In theory, common ground is hard to find on abortion. Neither those who see it as a fundamental right nor those who see it as a form of murder are prepared to compromise on their core principles. Yet a very large number of Americans are simultaneously uneasy with a government ban on abortion and with abortion itself. Substantial majorities would not make abortion illegal but would still like there to be fewer of them.

Catholics of good will, acting in good faith, have - and will continue - to differ on how best to respond to the tragedy of abortion in the United States. Some, of course, have placed their overriding focus on overturning Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973. Others, the NCR editors included, have advocated rooting out the causes that lead women to have abortions. We have argued that Catholics, while not agreeing on the political wisdom of overturning Roe, should agree to work together to reduce the numbers of abortions occurring in the U.S. We went on to speak about the special responsibilities of pro-lifers who supported the Democratic Party platform that calls for efforts to reduce U.S. abortions.

Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions. Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education -- services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies. Although the activists insist that they are not retreating from their belief that abortion is immoral and should be outlawed, they argue that a more practical alternative is to try to reduce abortions through other means.

After a presidential campaign in which it was widely perceived that the dominant message from the bishops was that Catholics were morally obliged not to vote for a candidate supporting abortion rights, exit polls show that Catholics voted 52 percent to 45 percent for Senator Barack Obama. That was seven percentage points more than the Catholic vote in 2004 for Senator John Kerry, a fellow Catholic. Hispanic Catholics, a group the bishops often hail as representing the future of the church in the United States, led the way. Latinos voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama, 16 percentage points more than their vote for Mr. Kerry. Latino Catholics, usually more Democratic than Protestant Latinos, almost certainly voted for the Democratic nominee at an even higher rate.

Catholic voters ignored the instructions of a group of vocal bishops and delivered 54% of their vote for Barack Obama as president of the United States. These bishops, led by Archbishops Charles Chaput and Raymond Burke, argued that abortion was the most important issue in the election and that no other issues outweighed it. As a result, they argued, Catholics could not vote for a pro-choice candidate. Although these bishops were a minority of the U.S. bishops, they received much attention in the media because other bishops kept silent or simply referred people to their 2007 document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. The silence of the majority gave the impression that the vocal bishops were speaking for all the bishops.

An ideologically diverse group of Christian leaders came together this past week to support a new ad campaign calling for policies that will reduce abortions. The Christian radio ad campaign began airing in 10 swing states on Wednesday and will run until Election Day on Nov. 4. The states the ad is airing in are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri. "We must move beyond the spiritually damaging culture war era," said the Rev. Rich Cizik, the National Association of Evangelicals' vice president for governmental affairs, in support of the ad campaign. "Deeply felt moral issues must no longer be leveraged for partisan gain. Let's all join together to be part of a positive strategy to reduce abortions in America that puts problem-solving above political posturing," he said. Christian leaders supporting the ad are calling for Democrat and Republican politicians to find common ground solutions to reduce the number of abortions in America by tackling the root causes of abortion, including preventing unintended pregnancies and poverty.

Over the last few weeks, more than 60 Catholic bishops, articulating their traditional views in ever stronger language, have urged voters to make abortion their top priority in an election dominated by the nation's economic turmoil. But the urgency of the bishops reflects an increasing concern about a new argument posed by some antiabortion intellectuals and organizations: that the legislative battle to outlaw abortion is hopeless and that antiabortion groups would be better off devoting themselves to preventing unwanted pregnancies and persuading pregnant women to carry their fetuses to term rather than trying to change the laws of the land. The discussion is taking place within evangelical Protestantism, as well as among Roman Catholics, but it is more visible in the Catholic Church because of the high profile of Catholic bishops.

It's abortion, stupid. For conservative Christians in this election the most important religious issue isn't gay marriage, stem-cell research or Christmas trees on courthouse lawns. It is abortion. This relative silence on the part of religious conservatives, along with the well-documented broadening of the evangelical agenda to include issues like poverty and the environment, has led some to speculate that conservative Christians don't care about abortion the way they used to. This assumption is not true. While just more than 50 percent of Americans call themselves pro-choice, according to recent polls, just over 40 percent call themselves "pro-life"-numbers that have not changed much in a decade. Among the very religious, though, opposition to abortion remains as strong as ever. Seventy percent of evangelicals who go to church weekly or more oppose legalized abortion. For Roman Catholics, the number is 60 percent.

All eyes were on Barack Obama's historic win in Tuesday's presidential election , but a number of significant ballot initiatives and gubernatorial races took dramatic turns as well. A pair of ballot initiatives that would have curtailed abortion were soundly defeated, while bans on gay marriage won or were headed for passage. And voters in 11 states chose governors -- with most incumbents winning reelection. The most prominent initiative was a measure put on the ballot in South Dakota to outlaw most abortions in hope of triggering a Supreme Court showdown over the landmark 1973 case Roe vs. Wade. Measure 11 lost by a lopsided margin.

The Democratic party has recruited a dozen anti-abortion Democratic challengers to run for the House this year and has aggressively supported with millions of dollars and other resources in culturally conservative districts long unfriendly to the party. That is the highest number of anti-abortion candidates the party has fielded in recent memory to run either for open seats or against Republican challengers, according to party strategists and a leading anti-abortion organization. It is a strategy that that has received little attention in an election year dominated nationally by a grim economic picture and an unpopular president. But Democratic Party strategists contend that in Congressional races, in which local sensibilities and attitudes often play as a big a role as national trends, candidates like Mr. Bright could potentially deprive Republicans of the one realm where they have enjoyed a significant advantage: social issues.