That's because the probably actual goal of the anti-abortionists isn't removing abortions, but putting women back in their "place."

Ditto what Dan said.

Fortunately, most of America disagrees with them, especially the younger set.

One purpose of such a strategy--at least in my mind--has always been to move the wedge. The anti-abortion forces always choose the most distasteful things (like late-term abortion) to split off less militant pro-choice forces. Doing a combined bill would move the wedge to the other side, splitting off (and exposing) those who want to use the law to control women's sexuality, not improve reproductive choices or women's health.
It seems that is what happened.

Obama is admirable in wanting to dial down the culture wars and broaden consensus, but he needs also to understand that there are substantive policies at stake, even principles, and sometimes comity has to give way to getting the best policy choice. This seems to be his biggest weakness.

It should be one bill for both strategic and substantive reasons.

OK, how about improving women's access to contraception and education

Maybe we can get a commission to try and get a compromise here. May I suggest Sanford, Giuliani, Gingrich, Vitter and Ensign. They don't strike me as the withdrawl method types.

I fail to see what, exactly, the middle ground would be on the issue of abortion. One side say no abortions, period. The other side says abortions when needed. It's not like anyone on the left is advocating for aborting pregnancies that the woman wants.

Jack Holland's "Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice" should be required reading in every high school in the country.

It all boils down to this: many of the "pro life" crowd actually wants to be the "orgasm police" and not allow any orgasms that are not intended to produce a baby. You should not be enjoying sex, at least not for any reason except procreation. That is why contraception is bad, and that is why masturbation is bad. Orgasms are evil and need to be limited to only properly approved use.

The left (yeah, right) needs to say, "Buh bye," to the right and describe to them in colorful terms exactly where they can stick their unattainable compromise.

But they won't because the immovable position of the opposition grants them the cover of 'bipartisanship' which in turns allows them to craft do-nothing bills that please their corporate owners and make, "We tried!" their indulgent battle cry.

Shocked! As is everyone who has had their heads in the dirt for the past two decades!

I agree with Danp. I would bet money that these Christian adulterers used birth control during the course of their falls from grace. It's time that the media start questioning these holier than thou Christian conservatives about their birth control methods and ask them why the contraceptives that were available to staunch the consequences of their behavior should not be available to anyone else.

The Roman Catholic Church's prohibition of active birth control is the most widely ignored of the church's dogmas. The Bishops may be against it, but the laity is "on the pill." I suspect that the political risk in pressing for contraception and education is much less than many might suppose.

If one has any "unwanted" sperm- and the seminal fluid that accompanies them- I suggest sending them, along with the damp Kleenex, to the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops or the Southern Baptist Convention.

Be sure to package them carefully, to insure viability. . .

I think forcing conservatives to publicly state that they are against comprehensive sex education and access to contraception is in fact part of the plan. It's a classic Obama move which forces the right to admit something they have otherwise been avoiding.

It puts the ball in their court and forces them to either agree to the plan or suggest another way to reduce unwanted pregnancies.

There is no common ground with conservatives, and Obama is tilting at windmills if he thinks he can find some. Not only does the anti-abortion crowd want to put women back in 'their place', but many are purely and simply anti-sex. Whether they think they were hatched from an egg, or just have horrible sex lives (most likely), their approach to any reproductive activity, even in marriage, is dictatorial and totalitarian. They think sex is bad.

Just where the 'common ground' will be with these absolutists is a mystery to me. Obama may, once again, have good intentions, but he's naive, again, if he thinks any sort of compromise is possible. My criticism of Obama is that he has been timorous, something that Bush & Co never were in pushing their radical agendas. If Obama cannot achieve most of his agenda with the majorities that he has, he will be a one-termer, and increasingly I fear that will be the case.

"Pro-life" people rarely talk about their opposition to contraception, because even they realize how ridiculous it sounds to normal people to insist that a pill that prevents ovulation is the moral equivalent of smothering a six-month-old baby. And yet that's what they claim to believe: that preventing the sperm and egg from meeting at all is morally exactly the same as killing an infant.

As the father of a newly learned about 15yr/o pregnant daughter confided to me, sex ed would have informed these teens that males "leak" and that "pulling it out" before ejaculation does not mean you won't get pregnant and making condoms available still doesn't answer the question as to why they are absolutely necessary. Just say no doesn't work. Now what...with unemployment and no health ins. and having to quit school...what now for the future of this child. What if there is something wrong, God forbid...a 15y/o pregnant female's stress level only matches her parents in this situation. Where are the answers and what are they.

Seems the battle isn't over helping real people, just the ideology..denying sex ed, denying access to birth control, then denying access to abortions (even if it were an uncle and the girl were 12 and would die during delivery). That is not liberty or freedom or even a democracy...that is Sharia law reasoning. It belongs to religion not to a democratic government. Get religious morality out of our government when it interferes with our civil rights. I look at it as the imposition of theocracy.

It's a classic Obama move which forces the right to admit something they have otherwise been avoiding. -Ben

I can't wait until one of these classic moves Obama cheerleaders are so fond of pointing out actually bears fruit.

Just where the 'common ground' will be with these absolutists is a mystery to me.

But here is where you miss the point. Obama wants to unite the country by telling people to look for answers in the gray, rather than only looking at the black and white. The more people actually look for places to compromise, the more they will see the right as truly absurd. And the reason is that it gets people out of that we vs they mentality that Republicans love so much.

Atrios explains it all. The real target is not abortion, but sex.

You cannot find common ground if one side of the debate is not even willing to plainly articulate its real position. The anti-sexers know they would be instantly relegated to the fringes if the majority of the public realized what they were really against. So they couch it in terms of abortion.

I was raised a Roman Catholic, went through all the sacraments, and still came out a "bleeding heart" as my father would say. How did that happen?! Well, when my mother learned of my pre-marital...."fun"...she insisted I be put on the pill. Why? Because she, as an educated woman, knows that "no" doesn't work, especially when the seal is already broken. Plus, she didn't want mini-hellians running around, and neither did I. I know that the Pope full well opposes birth control. I full well endorse it. Don't get me wrong--as a "pure-bred" Pollack and Roman Catholic, I still have that "MAKE BABIES!!!" instilled in me. However, that doesn't mean make babies before ready. :)

*correction: Pollock

Ben's right, I think. As has been noted elsewhere, pretending your bad-faith opponent is acting in good faith can pay a number of dividends. For one, it can get them to actually behave as though they were in good faith---a least some anti-abortion people will be convinced, and will find themselves supporting contraception. And others, who had found conservatives reasonable when they were saying "No baby killing!" will find conservatives less reasonable when they're saying "No birth control pills!"

Obviously, those on the professional advocacy side will not be moved---the Dobsons or the Drehers. But the individual voters, particularly those who consider themselves "independents" (which is a lot of them) will find themselves supporting Dems, and birth control distribution, without ever feeling like they were challenged. Not so emotionally satisfying, but much more practically useful.

Commenters are right that there can be no common ground when one side is lying about its objectives. But the point of this kind of thing is to force them to state their objectives, and thus marginalize themselves.

So much for bipartisanship.

Really, the abortion fight has been a political tool on the part of the right. The last thing the GOP really wants is for Roe to be overturned - because that will remove a major unifying force for the party.

Obama's move could be a smart one. If the discussion is framed rather than "the Left want abortion on demand" to "the Right wants to illegalize contraception" ... that's a win for the Left. So force the folks on the right to expose themselves, rather than just oppose "abortion on demand" ... make them publicly oppose a sincere effort to reduce abortion. And publicize that.

They've had it too easy.

"Democrats who want to dial down the culture wars"

Such a strange creature this describes. Does anyone recall any Republicans who were "dialing down" any kind of war during the horrible last eight years?

Were they ever careful not to call us "traitors", "treasonous", "on the wrong side of history", "cowards" or "unpatriotic"? Not to mention talking about us ripping babies apart and such.

Why are there Democrats who want to dial down the culture wars? It's time to make the 25% behave like they are 25%.

The solution is simple.
No sex education is required.
Turn to the Bible
It can prevent pregnancy.

If held firmly between the knees.

So much for "common ground" with conservatives.

There never has been any "common ground" with the anti-abortion crowd. A restricted right to abortion -- which is what we have under Roe -- isn't acceptable to them.

And there isn't much common ground with the anti-sex conservatives who want to ban birth control, either.

But that's a feature, not a bug. The Senior Anti-Sex League is way, way outside the American political mainstream, and the more they reveal themselves to be, the better.

I actually don't believe the pro-life crowd is against sex...they are against women's rights. Sex, for men, is never advocated against. All of the abstinence ed is based on girls saying no...not boys. In their thinking, pregnancy is the cost that women must pay, either have sex and have babies or don't have sex. If there is an unwanted pregnancy, than that is a just punishment for loose morals. Birth control removes that cost or punishment. Without those consequences, women will be given too much independence, choice, freedom.

Stopping birth control is not about stopping sex. Have lots of sex, just realize that if you do and you are a woman, you will have lots of babies. The pro-life movement seems to be about removing women's options.

I hope those of the progressive left start to look at this, not from a 'oh no, the orgasm police are here' but from why we allow such blatant misogyny to be given a platform.

I don't understand how Obama's position is seen as any sort of compromise. Are there pro-choice advocates who don't support birth control and improving healhcare for pregnant women? To me, these are all no-brainers for our side and don't represent any sort of compromise at all. We ALL support these things. I don't think there are any pro-abortion people who prefer abortion over contraception and rubbersl.

As far as I'm concerned the only difference would be in the rhetoric. I didn't like Clinton's talk of abortion being a negative thing, as I think it totally ceded moral ground to the Republicans; something he did intentionally for the sake of political expediency. And so if Obama is also going with the "abortion is icky" line, I'd think he was making a mistake. But I haven't seen that so far, so I think that's the only part that would be at issue. But again, I don't think anyone actually supports more abortions.

The plan would seek to reduce unwanted pregnancies by funding comprehensive sex education and contraception and to reduce the need for abortion by bolstering federal support for pregnant women. Supporters of the approach say it would force senators and members of Congress on both sides of the abortion battle to compromise their traditional positions,

What is the left side compromising in this?

There is no compromise here.

Not that there SHOULD be, but let's not pretend we've thrown the right a bone.

"Just tell me how anything as powerful as sex could ever possibly be safe." -- John Thompson

Continuing from comments above - yes, a fundamental and (mostly) unstated motivation of modern American conservatism is returning society to feudal norms of behavior: women as sexually idealized but instrumentally infantilized chattel, men as developmentally arrested emotional cripples free to indulge every puerile impulse. Now that's liberty, folks. That's freedom. God bless the GOP.

Have lots of sex, just realize that if you do and you are a woman, you will have lots of babies. The pro-life movement seems to be about removing women's options.

Actually, it sounds like the goal is "lots of babies." Hence, "pro-life." I am liberal and support Roe, but ignoring the intelligent and caring part of the anti-abortion crowd (and yes, they are out there, if silent--I've met some) simply leaves them alone with the nutties, who have done a great job of both co-opting their movement, as well as forcing liberals to adopt a seemingly pro-abortion stance.

Obama isn't triangulating, he's being honest. Abortion sucks, especially for many women who have one. But outlawing it just adds to the negative consequences, as women are forced to turn to disreputable and unsafe practices and the threat of legal consequences. If anyone remembers, that was the argument in Roe.

Let's all grow up and get behind the idea of working together to lower the number of abortions, and if some people's ethics don't allow them to support birth control for religious reasons (and, believe me, some of the motives ARE that simple, despite the crypto-fascist female-dominating fringe we see more often), so be it. Doesn't mean we can't work together in other respects.

Is it such a big deal to split the bill? Seems like the honest ones are the ones saying, "help me be able to get behind this effort." ignoring them is simply letting the true nutties win by making this the wedge issue it never really needed to be.

It was unlucky timing for the Catholic Church that Pope Paul issued his encyclical Humanae Vitae, condemning artificial contraception, just a few years before Roe v. Wade put abortion on the front burner. Having already declared contraception a grave moral evil, it was left with no stronger ammunition to fire at abortion. It has always been a problem. When you teach that a boy's "impure thoughts" merit eternal hellfire, what worse can you mete out to practitioners of genocide, for example. You have debased your own coin and made it easier for people who reject the first as nonsense to question the second as well.

"Whatever it is, I'm against it!"
-Prof. Quincy Adams Wagstaff
(Groucho Marx in Horsefeathers)

Mimikatz's got it at 1:22.

Social conservatives sometimes let down their guard and show their real colors. In the debate here in Colorado about "safe harbor" laws under which parents can surrender their newborns at a hospital, a police station or a fire station without repercussions, one of our local commentators was very much against it.

Why? Because it would let women off too easily (his actual words.) Apparently a 16 year old girl who has hidden a pregnancy for nine months and then given birth in a dingy motel room with the help of her equally terrified 17 year old boyfriend simply hasn't suffered enough.

This argument against safe harbor laws is apparently widespread enough that Mona Charen (pretty right wing herself) brought it up in a column. She was horrified that so-called prolife types preferred punishing women over possibly saving babies. I was horrified but not at all surprised.

This argument against safe harbor laws is apparently widespread enough that Mona Charen (pretty right wing herself) brought it up in a column. She was horrified that so-called prolife types preferred punishing women over possibly saving babies. I was horrified but not at all surprised.

I'm not at all surprised, least of all by the concept they seem to hold that the baby is a punishment. Nice.

Not only is linking abortion-reduction policies with greater availability of contraception correct from a policy standpoint, but it's also good politics. For Democrats, anyway. This is our wedge issue — our chance to show how rigid and stupid the other side is.

They've been beating us over the head for 15 years with D&X, now let's give them some of their own medicine. How many American voters would sympathize with the anti-abortion movement if they knew those same folks people were adamantly opposed to contraception as well?

"Americans' claims to be conflicted about abortion are a handy self-deception of the sort all nations engage in when a treasured self-image comes in conflict with a treasured reality. (Think of Britain, which persists in thinking the stiff upper lip central to its national character, even after a royal funeral that showed it to be the most emotional of advanced nations.) We should distrust the pro-life spin that Americans are more conflicted over abortion than citizens of other Western countries. They're not. What they exhibit is a rock-solid, European-style support for abortion, with American moral posturing plastered on top. The Bauer-Buchanan wing of the Republican Party would court voters by promising to expose them as hypocrites. Lots of luck.

"...bringing down abortion would also bring down many of the implicit rules that govern American life. The result would be more than just a society with fewer abortions. It would be a society that actually was based on traditional moral values. That's a society that none of us would recognize and even many who call themselves pro-life would find intolerable."

- Christopher Caldwell, "Pro-Lifestyle" (The New Republic, April 5, 1999)

It's easy to see this is mostly read by a narrow-minded left wing group of people, at least those who use slander and trash talk as an argument instead of any real facts. Most Christian groups save the Catholics are not anti sex education, the problem is that so many of the programs leave comprehensive education as a label on the door but then spent far to much time discussion positions, and lifestyle exploration (which is fine in context) and far too little actual science, ethics, or morals.

As a parent of 4 who moves often I can tell you that my kids have gone through a number of these programs in various states that spend most of the time promoting promiscuity despite what the curriculum says and far too little time on facts and science.

This is what ticks of the conservatives. I have had teachers who encouraged students for example to have sex with someone older (including them) because older people can be better lovers and teachers (both were women by the way). I have had teachers spend weeks on masturbation and minutes on contraception, I've had my kids come home where they were told as part of the grade that they would be expected to have both same sex and straight sex and report on the findings as part of their grade (thanks california) and that they should not let their parents know about the assignment. I've had teachers show porn flicks in class and bring in explicit demeaning sex magazines as source materials. These things do encourage behavior most don't want our kids exposed to or our daughters thinking is okay or our sons treating the girls like.

And yes I've had responsible schools and teachers do a fine job at fair and complete programs that taught the repercussions that can result in poor choices, date rape, drugs and alcohol effects and parenting and baby skills.

The problem is far too many teachers go way beyond the correct and authorized programs, teach many things from person points of view and sexual inclinations, and do encourage irresponsible behavior. If there was a way to protect against this many conservatives would come around. There is too much PC and special interest politics attached to this issue and that bothers people who would otherwise not mind their kids learning facts so long as the other crap could be kept out of the programs.

BEJbix