My attempt to come up with some guidelines for moving beyond the abortion stalemate did not work very well. I received three kinds of responses.
The first felt my effort to be carefully neutral ended up being irrelevant. Lupe, who has spent time as a political prisoner and journalist, knows far better than I about communicating in this kind of situation. She felt my formality took the life out of my thoughts. “What we need to do is talk to each other honestly, with affection and truth, and not choose words as if they were pain-medication pills. …. We do not counsel each other. We hold each other, comfort each other, admire and praise each other, or frankly, criticize and even blame each other. No formal, encompassing words define or describe what we do, but we use very basic words for feelings, emotions, grudges, anger or pain. ….” She was right that my caution resulted in writing what I thought I should say rather than what I really wanted to say.
The second response believed I was trying to write guidelines for a public conversation that existed only in my mind. This group claimed there is no real public discourse going on and probably never has been. They called for a different strategy that works to correct the breakdown of our elections that had previously enabled us to live together in spite of our differences.
Scott articulated what I think I was hearing when he wrote that he has given up on direct conversation with Trump conservatives whom he knows personally. “Instead, I focus on non-judgmental interactions and modeling Christian love.” He feels “the mainstream church must mobilize to take back our Jesus,” so we can counter the spreading of disinformation by Q-Anon and Trumpsters. John also has frequently advocated this strategy. Paul has questioned if anything will work at this point.
This makes me wonder if I am presumptuous, believing I can propose guidelines. Anything I come up with is surely going to reflect my pro- choice position. At the same time, I still think it is worth some effort as I believe there is always a vague disjointed conversation going on somewhere underneath all the angry arguments.
The third response suggested we should be talking about tactics for getting our case across rather than guidelines for some unrecognizable discussion. For example, we should reject the present labels. Pro-choice is not pro-abortion. I repeatedly heard people claim nobody wants abortion except as a necessary evil available in tragic situations, or words to that effect. They also feel we should challenge the pro-life label because the group just really opposes abortion and not other destruction of life.
For the most part, I was hearing frustration at the inability to have any meaningful conversation. Most seem to think we should continue to try to talk with one another honestly and with affection, as Lupe proposes, in hopes that a breakthrough might someday appear. They might think my guidelines are naive in the present situation, but I would still suggest that we, at least, can see the value of starting with some self-examination and continuing with compassion, regardless of how the other side acts. The goal has to be eventually getting beyond the we-they standoff.
