The Slippery Slope of Re-framing Reproductive Rights

You should check out Linda Feldman’s piece for the Christian Science Monitor, For Democrats, Abortion Revisited. Discussing Howard Dean’s comments on abortion during “Meet the Press” last month (in which he urged respect for anti-choice Democrats), Feldman explores how differing views on reproductive rights may impact DNC leadership decisions. She argues that the party is at a cross-roads, as many Democrats struggle to reframe the current reproductive rights platform to satisfy red-staters.

“Some Democrats, including those who oppose abortion rights, point to Clinton’s mantra that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare” as the winning formulation. In a press-club speech last week, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts spoke in those terms. He won praise from Democratic activists ranging from Kate Michelman, a longtime abortion-rights leader, to Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian whose focus is fighting poverty, but who also opposes abortion.”
I understand the necessity of building bridges, but I’ve also accepted the fact that I’m not going to change most anti-choicers’ view on the issue. I know that I have a legal right to exercise my reproductive freedom, and I don’t feel compelled to package my right-to-choose in a way that’s going to please the Right. However, there seems to be a growing group of pro-choicers that disagree with this activist stance…
“Frances Kissling, head of Catholics for a Free Choice and author of a 7,400-word essay outlining how Democrats can make concessions on abortion without sacrificing their core beliefs, says the movement has to get over its fear of the ‘slippery slope.’ Ms. Kissling calls for a new discourse that ‘will permit us to acknowledge both women’s rights and needs and our basic respect for all human life, including fetal life.'”
Ummmm, no thanks. Concessions aren’t the answer. I believe that we have to focus our movement on women’s rights not “fetal rights”–that slope is just *way* too slippery.
And while Dean may believe that the Democratic party needs to “make a home for pro-life Democrats”, I don’t. While someone should have the right to identify as both anti-choice and a Democrat, I don’t feel compelled to accomodate them in their anti-women views. Any thoughts?