I missed the show today and I’m glad you’ve given me this excellent excerpt. Thanks. I’ll now go back and listen to the show. The comment thread is no where near as conciliatory as this excerpt.

When is it murder? At what age? I will never understand proabortionist. No wonder Rev. Ragsdale was stuttering.

I agree with Jim Wallis that it is reality that abortion will stay legal. That is a fact. I also voted for the president, and agree to look for common ground. HOWEVER, I wholeheartedly disagree with the Rev. that abortion is a blessing.

A zygote has its own DNA, and is an individual human life. The life of a healthy, unborn fetus, thus, should be constitutionally protected. As a Christian, I believe all human beings are created in God’s image and have intrinsic worth and value. This is why, not because of a desire to “control women”, so many pro-life people are against abortion.

Also, the notion that if a woman becomes pregnant her only option is to abort or carry the child to term is nonsense. Everyday hundreds of women abort children that so many parents would love to adopt.

The Rev. and the pro-choice movement’s arguments are a joke. And while I believe that war and poverty carry much more human suffering than an abortion, morally, abortion is just as evil and a stain on humanity.

I am pro-life. To me this means a lot of things: no death penalty; social provivions for the poor; visit those who are imprisoned; ban assault weapons; support universal health care and avoid unwanted pregnancy to prevent abortions. Alas, the fixation on the act of abortion comes at the expense of many pro-life issues. I suspect that one reason for this is that it is much harder to *be* pro-life than it is to proclaim that abortion is evil.

Is it not ironic that this “sin” can be “committed” by women only, yet pro-life men are very clear about its moral valence? To assume women cannot make sound moral decisions is deeply offensive to me. I will always vote pro-choice *because* I am pro-life, and the lives of women matter to me too.

Morals are always ideal in the abstract. The issue of abortion will always be abstract for men, never to be experienced directly. For women and men, moral clarity is easy from a distance. I know this because I remember well the righteous passion I once held for the plight of the unborn. Then a beloved friend had an abortion. Her suffering made me wonder: Was she evil?

Not long after this, with 5 children to care for and in the midst of a painful divorce, I learned I was pregnant. As a Christian, as a mature moral agent, as woman and a mother, I chose to end my pregnancy. Am I evil?

To assume that I do not understand moral ideals is simply wrong. I do not “believe in” abortion or divorce and a lot of other things. These are fine moral values! Yet moral ambiguity remains with life providing many moral challenges. No doubt, there are many “stains” on humanity in general and on me in particular.

My own sinfulness brought me to a new, more complex and uncomfortable moral clarity: as much as I would like to be, I am not pure. I hold a deep compassion, quite common among the “fallen,” for the plight of the sinner. Unlike those who are pure, I need no lecture from the anti-abortion folks to inform me about human sin. I am well acquainted with the problem, thank you very much.

karen hutto, “I will never understand proabortionist. No wonder Rev. Ragsdale was stuttering.” That’s terrible, for 1. implying that Ragsdale doesn’t believe what she is saying, and 2. refusing to understand the other side. Understanding both sides of the controversy is not hard. You can believe in either side, but as humans we are capable of looking at things from different points of view and there is no shortage of information about both sides.

the controversy is decades and decades old. Neither side is going to absolutely persuade the other side. It’s time, as the president said at Notre Dame, to look for common ground and not reduce the other side to caricature. Both sides are capable of treating this as a deeply moral and ethical issue.

For an interesting look into the rhetoric of both pro-life and pro-choice advocates, check out the information on the abortion dialogue work done by the Public Conversations Project. The info is found under the heading, Talking With the Enemy.

http://www.publicconversations.org/dialogue/policy/abortion

Common ground is possible on a number of issues; but not if the extreme rhetoric of both sides remains. Consider the following quote from the article:

“Our talks would not aim for common ground or compromise. Instead, the goals of our conversations would be to communicate openly with our opponents, away from the polarizing spotlight of media coverage; to build relationships of mutual respect and understanding; to help deescalate the rhetoric of the abortion controversy; and, of course, to reduce the risk of future shootings.”

The abortion dialogues followed the 1994 clinic shootings in the Boston area by Salvi. The advocates met in secret for 6 years. Their story was finally told in 2001–we must learn from it! We will not find the common ground that is so needed until we can begin to understand and respect those with opposing views.

Language choices matter. One of the first barriers faced in the PCP work was what to call “the other side.” Pro-choice advocates are not “baby-killers” or “pro-abortion” and pro-life advocates are not “women haters.” Understanding and respect are impossible until the rhetoric changes.

I’m not advocating censorship, but we should all ask what is the true purpose when we knowingly and purposefully engage in language that incites and escalates.

Wonderful show! I was SO glad to hear a defense of Dr. Tiller, and and a clear explanation of why what he did was/is so necessary. I feel so many people do not understand why abortion is sometimes the best outcome. Not all fetuses unfortunately are meant to be born and live, and this fairy tale some believe about wanton abortion doctors doing this for money and greed is ridiculous. I was also glad to here the Rev. say that it is also about a patriarchal control, that some men are so fearful about letting women have this freedom over their reproductive lives. Thank you Tom for a deft handling of a complex subject. And thank you for hopefully educating some people about it.

There is a place for common ground on abortion.

It’s called the Establishment Clause.

When life begins is a religious and philosophical issue.

This is an issue where there cannot be a comprise.

In one corner, you have barbaric religious mystic cavemen with a primitive emotion-based and faith-based philosophy who have maliciously abandoned reason and who want to force their religious beliefs on other people.

In the other corner you have people who want to pursue their rational self interest and who essentially regard the religious beliefs as utter nonsense.

Getting these two camps to “compromise” is like trying to mix Christian Taliban with modern civilization. It can’t really be done–a compromise is a logical impossibility. The best thing might be if the opponents of abortion left the country and founded their own theocratic Christian version of Iran or Taliban-controlled Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion.

Frank, after reading one your incoherent rants, it’s easy to see why you are “unemployed”.

Frank, there can be a compromise or there could be a compromise if the anti-choice extremists believed in the rule of law; that is the separation of church and state.

The state shouldn’t sanction one religious view of when life begins over another.

Also, as a pro-choice minded person, I don’t see religion as utter nonsense. It fulfilled (fulfills) a role in social cohesion &c..

Religion can give people solace. The writings by religious peoples in such texts as:the old and new testaments, the koran, &c.. are a great record of human history, and of accumulated knowledge of how to live in a civilization.

It is sad that so many women have let men reduce this discussion to an argument about life or death. Pregnancy and carrying a pregnancy to term must remain a woman’s decision, not only about whether to give birth but also about whether she is prepared to face the possibility of serious physical changes in her own body many of which are permanent; the real possibility of varicose veins, diabetes, hypertension, hemorrhoides, weight gain, but also reduced physical ability to care for herself and other dependents. All women who have borne and raised children know well about the childhood illnesses, child care responsibilites, and nurturing that confront women with young children. Each pregnant woman must come to her own decision about what her body and her life situation can manage. What right have I or others to tell women what they should do?

The possibility of getting varicose veins is a sufficient reason to terminate the life of an unborn child? Are you out of your mind?

I never hear about preventing abortions by preventing the pregnancy in the first place. Here is a common ground – instead of protesting at clinics and killing doctors who are performing neccessary medical procedures, go out and hand out condoms and birth control pills.

What a wonderful page! It’s amazing that virtually every letter (excepting Joe B’s) is rational and very well written. Many were from the heart (especially Bea’s letter), and from deep and personal experience. Bravo!

The bottom line, the absolute bottom, as demonstrated by law and a majority of opinion, is that women, like men, must have control over their bodies or this is not a republic and freedom doesn’t exist. The reason for this law should be self evident. Therefore, we should elevate and support the role of the Mother, not fight over her like pack dogs. We most provide FREE AND UNBIASED sex education, counseling, birth control and access to abortion when necessary, starting now. The Christian Right would do well to spend their energies and money on Planned Parenthood, a charity organization which is doing all they can to help–when some twisted soul isn’t firebombing them and shooting doctors, calling himself the right hand of God. The GOOD Christians are cringing and wringing their hands with the rest of us, I know.