As the 1980s turned into the 1990s, a gentle rain began falling
in some parts of the abortion-debate desert. A group called Search for Common
Ground produced a public TV program called "What's the
Common Ground on Abortion?" as part of a series of "common
ground" programs covering gun control, hawks and doves, energy
policy and numerous other issues. Dr. John Willke, President of
the National Right to Life Committee, and Kate Michelman, Executive
Director of the National Abortion Rights League, clarified their
considerable differences -- and then they spoke to the question
"Given your massive disagreement, are there areas in which
you might agree?" They agreed that neither wanted abortions
to occur; that both wanted to minimize unwanted pregnancies; that
both could work together to promote adoption and reduce infant
mortality; and that many on both sides wanted to promote birth
control. They were surprised. No one had asked the question before.
Over the next three years people who apparently had not seen this
program started creating dialogues among pro-life and pro-choice
activists. Most of them called their groups simply Common Ground
-- only later finding out that other such groups with the same
name were cropping up all over the country (a possible morphogenetic
phenomenon).
But one of the first groups called itself simply The
Public Conversation Project.
The seed for it sprouted one day in December 1989. Family therapist
Laura Chasin was watching an acrimonious TV debate on abortion
in her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She recognized some of
the same patterns she saw in her work with dysfunctional families,
and wondered if the therapeutic insights and processes of her
profession could be applied to the polarization of political discourse.
With a small group of colleagues she set up The Public Conversation
Project as an experiment.
They gathered together some pro-choice and pro-life citizens who
were willing to try some real dialogue.
First, over a buffet dinner, participants took a few minutes each
to say something about themselves that did not disclose their
stance on abortion. Then, after agreeing to some communication
guidelines (like "no interrupting"), they gathered in
a circle to tell their personal
stories about abortion -- how they came to think and feel and
act as they did, what their histories were, what the heart of
the matter was for each of them, personally. Then, speaking as
individuals rather than partisans, they shared what they weren't
sure of; what they struggled with; their own grey areas and mixed
feelings about abortion. When the circle was done, they had come
to know each other as unique human beings, not as stereotyped
embodiments of political positions. And the full complexity of
this issue, in the unique lives of real people, was much clearer
to all of them. With that came a respect for the unique ways each
of them had struggled with the issue, and what an intense struggle
it was. In over a dozen sessions, each with different participants,
the results were the same: stereotypes were replaced by real people.
In the summer of 1991, unaware that 9 months of abortion dialogues had just
been completed on the other side of the continent, San Francisco's Peggy Green
-- a pro-choice radical feminist -- was driving to visit her pro-life sister,
Patti Gent, when she stopped for breakfast. There she saw a front-page photo
of women screaming at each other in front of a Kansas abortion clinic. When
her sister agreed it was possible for pro-life and pro-choice women to get together,
Green joined with a San Francisco neighbor, pro-choice Amy Levine. They reached
out to pro-life activists -- some refered by Gent and some found at abortion
clinic demonstrations. One was Jane Smith (not her real name), a dedicated organizer
for Operation Rescue, a direct action anti-abortion group. "She trusted
us and shared our vision," said Green. "We couldn't have done this
without her." Both sides discovered women on the other side who were deeply
concerned about children and the treatment of women.
They named their group Common Ground, only later discovering that
similar grassroots women's groups had sprung up in Dallas, Milwaukee,
St. Louis, and elsewhere, all with the same name, all unaware
of the others. St. Louis Common Ground was most advanced, providing
help to low-income families, helping teens who wanted to place
babies for adoption, lobbying for pro-family legislation and better
prenatal care and launching programs to reduce teen pregnancy
and increase young women's self-respect. One organizer said, "It
was shockingly easy to identify issues we agree on."
Six months after its formation, San Francisco Common Ground brought
together thirty-one women, balanced among pro-choice, pro-life
and those who were ambivalent or undecided -- members of National
Organization for Women, Operation Rescue, Feminists for Life and
Catholics for Choice. Green remembers at that retreat "two
women, one a lesbian abortion rights activist, the other an evangelical
Christian. Both of them had done their time in front of abortion
clinics. But one night at the retreat, during an exercise we all
went through, there they were, sitting face-to-face, holding onto
one another's hand and crying, silently, together." The goal
of Common Ground, according to its brochure, was to "lower
the fence at least enough to look into each other's eyes."
The following year, back east in New York, the Buffalo Council
of Churches called on Search for Common Ground to help heal their
community, which had become deeply divided on this issue. In response,
SCG created the Coalition for Life and Choice, a national group
that began facilitating dialogues across the country to help people
in abortion-divided communities rehumanize each other, locate
common concerns and develop ways to work cooperatively.
COMMENTARY: The poet Rumi said, "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there." Too often notions of right and wrong lead us to stop seeing each other, to close ourselves off from the rich complexity and ambiguity and co-creativity of life. Co-intelligence calls upon us to open, to step into the wide field of life, to encounter each other and the world with our full hearts, and move together into whatever rich possibilities we can discover together. Never is this impossible -- even in life-and-death matters such as abortion. It is seldom, however, easy. The effort to reach toward The Other stretches us, makes us grow, loosens the edges that make us solid. It is dangerous work, challenging, and important beyond comprehension.
Follow-up: January 2000 article by six abortion pro-life and pro-choice who participated in Public Conversation Project dialogues for over five years.