The Real Pro-Life Candidate

By Cristina Page, RH Reality Check. Posted June 25, 2008.

Obama has a huge opportunity to win over an unlikely voting bloc: Pro-life voters. The debate over reproductive rights has for decades existed in the abstract; it's been a back and forth volley over "values" that's heavy on emotion and light on fact. But the facts reveal surprising truths and they ought to be hammered home by Obama. The data show that the pro-choice approach is more effective at achieving what the American public views as "pro-life" goals -- i.e. reducing the number of abortions, preventing late term abortion -- than the so-called "pro-life" approach.

McCain may campaign on the "immorality" of abortion but the policies he supports seem to lead to lots more of them. Isn't it time to turn the tables? Obama should hold McCain and and other anti-choice leaders accountable for their failure to find solutions to the high rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion. He has the opportunity to change the debate. It's not about abortion; it's about preventing unwanted pregnancy.

And it is the pro-choice movement that is finding effective ways to do that. This is the unacknowledged fact that should be broadcast loud and clear during this election campaign. Here's the message: It's pro-choice policies that result in dramatic declines in the need for abortion. That's a truth both pro-choice and pro-life voters would be interested to know.

The pro-choice movement, and pro-choice politicians, alone champion wider access to birth control, and birth control is the only proven way to reduce unintended pregnancy and abortion. Obama shouldn't get sucked into the silly debate about whether the Pill is an abortifacient since even the anti-abortion movement's most respected physicians agree there's no scientific evidence that it is. He should ask why McCain hasn't championed campaigns to reduce unwanted pregnancies. The electorate should be reminded that it's the pro-choice movement and pro-choice elected officials that have fought for health insurance coverage for contraception as well as to bring new and more effective contraceptives to market. (Emergency contraception, for instance.) Also, let's not forget that the birth control pill itself is available to Americans entirely because of the efforts of the pro-choice movement.

Check out any NARAL affiliate's agenda and you'll see that most pro-choice work is devoted to increasing access to prevention. Up until Bush ordered it removed, the Centers for Disease Control's website had a "Programs that Work" area for sex education programs that quantitative data showed resulted in reductions in the teem pregnancy and STD rates. Every program was comprehensive sex-ed, the kind promoted by the pro-choice movement. Not one was abstinence-only, the program that preaches that teens simply shouldn't have sex, which "pro-life" forces favor. Obama supports the comprehensive sex-ed programs that have been proven to work, McCain supports no-sex-until-marriage programs which have been proven to fail.

Obama could remind the voter that only 11% of sexually active women don't use contraception and from this 11% comes 50% of the nation's abortions. Ninety-one percent of the American public strongly favors contraception because of this very reason. Very few voters are aware, however, that not one pro-life organization in the United States supports contraception. Or that instead, pro-life groups have been spearheading campaigns to prevent Americans from accessing birth control. No less than 80% of self-described pro-life voters strongly support contraception. Few know that McCain has a long legislative resume devoted to voting against access to contraception and prevention.

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Cristina Page is the author of 'How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America' (Perseus Books, 2006).

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