Washington D.C., Nov 18, 2008 / 16:50 pm
Certain pro-life pastors, academics, and activists are now working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation intended to encourage women to continue their pregnancies by providing more health care, child care, and money. One of the pro-abortion rights allies, a Third Way, has strategized on how to marginalize both pro-lifers who favor outlawing abortion and people who oppose homosexual politics.
The pro-lifers reaching out to abortion rights supporters argue that legal challenges to permissive abortion laws will not be successful, especially following Barack Obama’s election to the presidency, the Washington Post reports.
“If one strategy has failed and failed over decades, and you have empirical information that tells how you can honor life and encourage women to make that choice by meeting real needs that are existing and tangible, why not do that?” Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor and pro-life Catholic, told the Washington Post.
The coalition of pro-lifers seeking policy change rather than legal change includes Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals; Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good; Catholics United, described as a progressive Catholic lay group; Sojourners, a progressive evangelical organization; and RealAbortionSolutions.org, a coalition of Catholics and evangelical leaders.
Rev. Thomas Reese, S.J.., from Georgetown University’s Woodstock Theological Center, has also allied himself with the effort, even though he has resigned himself to only commenting on politics in the past.