hhttp://www.cpn.org/sections/topics/family-intergen/stories-studies/commonground_lifechoice.html





















    
Pro-Life and Pro-Choice Groups Use Dialogue and Shared Concerns to Find Common Ground
  
 The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice grew out of a series of workshops for pro-life and pro-choice people by  Search for Common Ground, first in Buffalo and later in  St. Louis, Cleveland, Denver, Cincinnati, Pensacola and the Washington, D.C. area. The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice believes that the abortion conflict provides an opportunity for dialogue and creative problem-solving through facilitated dialogues and addressing shared concerns. Fundamental is that no one is ever asked to change his or her belief about the core issue of abortion.
 

 Story:

  

 

 Case study plus:

 
  • Finding Common Ground in the Abortion Conflict: A Manual.
    
  This 96-page manual by Mary Jacksteit and Adrienne Kaufmann introduces the Common Ground approach that seeks to open new channels of communication in the abortion conflict and to promote the exploration and development of cooperative efforts between pro-choice and pro-life supporters.  A step-by-step guide, with examples and materials from Common Ground projects across the United States. 
 
    
 
  • Adoption as Common Ground. This paper, by pro-life and pro-choice activists involved in Common Ground Network for Life and Choice, provides a cogent pro-choice/pro-life rationale for the wider availability and acceptance of adoption.  It also includes suggestions for concrete steps that local common ground initiatives can take to further shared goals on this issue.
 
    
 
  • Common Ground on Teen Pregnancy: A Pro-Choice, Pro-Life Conversation.
     This paper was developed by a pro-life/pro-choice working group of the Network Steering Committee. The Points of Common Ground call for abstinence to be encouraged and supported as a positive and feasible choice for teens and recognize that self-esteem, life opportunities and the mentoring support of adults are critical elements of any effort to reduce pregnancy and abortion among this age group. Separate essays highlight key concerns and separate perspectives of the authors.
 
    
 
  • For more information, see the CPN affiliate page for Common Ground for Life and Choice.
 

 
  
 

 

 
The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice Promotes Non-adversarial Dialogue on Abortion

   
 

 
 In 1992, after an Operation Rescue campaign marked by violence, the Buffalo Council of Churches organized a one-day conference on nonviolent protest.  Some continued these discussions on a weekly basis, focusing specifically on the abortion conflict, and then invited the Search for Common Ground in Washington, D.C. to develop organizing and conceptual support for what has since become the Buffalo Coalition for Common Ground.
 

 In St. Louis, Andy Puzder, the prolife lawyer who helped to author Missouri's legislative restrictions on abortion, and Ms. B.J. Isaacson-Jones, the director of Reproductive Health Services, the largest abortion provider in the state, which sued to stop the legislation, sought a new approach after the Supreme Court ruling upheld the law.  Andy had suggested in a newspaper article that it was time to put aside hostilities and find ways to cooperate to help the women and children whom both sides claimed to protect. 
 

 After a series of cordial discussions, they were joined by others prominent on each side of the debate, and for more than four years have focused common attention and resources on issues of mutual concern: assistance to crack-addicted pregnant women, preventing unwanted pregnancies, providing women support during pregnancy, teaching abstinence to teenagers, reducing infant mortality, and financing school breakfast programs.
 

 In Wisconsin, Maggi Cage, a mediator, psychotherapist and former abortion clinic owner, and Harry Webne-Behrman, a professional mediator, convinced four Wisconsin legislators -- two pro-life and two pro-choice -- to convene a common ground meeting "to put a face on the abortion conflict."  Through regular meetings over a period of 13 months, the group developed a set of principles for sex education in the public schools.  And student dialogue groups have now been organized at a Wisconsin college.
 

 In other cities the story is similar.  In Cleveland, the director of communication of Feminists for Life, Marilyn Kopp, took the initiative; in San Francisco, it was pro-choice feminist and NOW member Peggy Green.  In Cambridge, Massachusetts, a group of family therapists formed the Public Conversations Project. 
 

 

 Story by Andrea Walsh, Acting Director of Studies, Program on Degrees in Women's Studies, Harvard University.  Andrea is also a member of the CPN Families, Gender, and Children editorial team.