Abortion: Understanding differences.(analyzing the stands of the pro-choice and pro-life movements)

Apart from some of the nastier reasons people impute to each other, just why is it that there are such profound differences about abortion? For at least 20 years, we have asked that question of each other, just as we have asked how our own differences and those of others might be reconciled. Ever since we began discussing the topic of abortion in the 1960s, we have disagreed. Well over half of our 30 years of marriage have been marked (though rarely marred) by an ongoing argument. For all of that time, Daniel has taken a prochoice position and Sidney a prolife position (to use, somewhat reluctantly, the labels adopted by the activists for themselves). At one time, while Daniel was writing a book (*) on the subject, we talked about it every day for four years. Thereafter, Sidney wrote a number of articles on abortion, some of which would be photocopied and distributed by prolife protesters at Daniel's lectures. Whether observers made the connection between the two Callahans was not always clear, but we experie nced the conflict firsthand. Over the years, every argument, every statistic, every historical example cited in the literature has been discussed between us. As Eliza Doolittle says about words, "There's not a one I haven't heard."

Yet we continue to disagree. How can that be? Our desire to understand better our own differences and those of others led us not long ago to organize a small research project at The Hastings Center. Why not, we thought, look at the problem by considering the different ways in which abortion opponents understand themselves and the world? How do they bring that wider and deeper under. standing to bear on this difficult, divisive issue? Many people, we reluctantly suspect, are not greatly interested in understanding in some sympathetic way why abortion is sc divisive an issue. To recall Karl Marx, they want to change the world, not understand it. In the larger political arena, it is victory that counts. But given the depth and apparent intractability of abortion differences, we think that in the long run, most people will have to find a way to live with differences. In our project, therefore, we tried to see if we could provide some better insight into how individuals weigh and order their values when dealing w ith abortion. Though they came up from time to time, we did not directly deal with such common issues in the abortion debate as when life begins or what the law should be. Instead, we concerned ourselves with the way in which abortion as a problem is situated within the terrain of a person's general, more encompassing values. We hoped that if we could not entirely escape the common forms of sociological or psychological reductionism, we might at least bring to them some greater complexity and penetration. We sought only understanding-not a compromise solution, a consensus position or a political recommendation.

A few other decisions gave the project its final shape. With the exception of Daniel, all of the participants were women. They were drawn equally from the prochoice and the prolife sides. And they were instructed to Focus their discussion on four broad themes: Feminism, the family, childbearing and child rearing, and the political and cultural nature of our society. Those topics, we believe, provide for many people the background framework of values that often shape abortion attitudes. Finally, although we wanted a group that was evenly divided on the moral and political issues, we also wanted one that could effectively talk and work together. There was no pretense that the group would be representative of all the ethnic, religious, political and cultural groups active in the abortion debate. But it was representative of one important, if sometimes overlooked, group--those women who, though they differ, are willing to talk with those on the other side, willing to make the effort to empathize with those who h old opposing views and willing to see if they can find some shared ground to keep their dialogue alive. The results of our discussion were sufficient to persuade us that a more complex, nuanced and fruitful argument is possible.

The general debate has seen an effort, on all sides, to make abortion fit into some overall coherent scheme of values, one that can combine personal convictions and consistency with more broadly held social values. Abortion poses a supreme test in trying to achieve that coherence. It stands at the juncture of a number of value systems, which continually joust with each other for dominance, but none of which by itself can do full justice to all the values that, with varying degrees of insistence and historical rooted-ness, clamor for attention and respect. Here, we will try to present a composite picture of the positions presented at our meetings.

The values that sustain and give theoretical legitimacy to both the prolife and the prochoice movements command widespread respect. Neither side has invented unusual moral principles or idiosyncratic values. Consider first the prolife position. It is committed to:

* respect for an individual's right to life, even if that right is uncertain or in doubt (or even if there is doubt about whether life actually has begun);

* the need, at the least, to protect the weak and powerless, in order to preserve them from the harm that can be done by the more powerful and, at the most, to provide them with an opportunity to develop their full potential;