Chastising *me* for trying to pass off “points with which one thinks all sides should agree” as points with which all sides can agree…that’s rich, coming from the man who bristled at any criticism of his proposed points of common ground.

So, am I correct that most people would agree that “it is easier and safer to prevent an unwanted pregnancy than to end one” and that we should structure public policy, education and messaging in ways that encourage the former rather than the latter? If we agree on that, how would you suggest restructuring the first half of the sentence?

If “universal access to affordable contraception” equals taxpayer funding of contraception, you are not going to find that this is common ground. I suspect you already know this.

If one truly wants common ground, one starts with the points with which all sides agree, not the points with which one thinks all sides should agree.

7) All of us believe that if abortion is necessary to save the expectant mother’s life, choosing the mother’s life over the fetus’s is never wrong.

There are in fact some people–including some expectant mothers–who would value their unborn child’s life over the life of the expectant mother. I would never want their conviction in this to become the default for public policy, but I would also not want to take away an individual woman’s option to freely make that choice.

If this happens, it is extremely rare, and making it part of the policy/morality/legality discussion is like including the stunt-riding of Evel Knievel in a traffic study meant to determine whether your village needs more traffic lights or speed bumps.

To which there are two responses:

1) we can say, “Okay, we all agree that we should not drive through town like Evil Knievel. So let’s move on to the real issue”

2) we can say, “But Evil Knievel doesn’t live here. Why are you bringing him here? You’re just trying to skew the report. And what about the handicapped person who uses special equipment in her vehicle. Let’s talk about her. Let’s have her test out the traffic bumps.”

Which response do you think leads to a solution? Which one just exacerbates the process?

And usually Timothy Kincaid is better than that.

But this issue tends to bring out the Backfire Effect fairly quickly in people.

Priya Lynn: Human behavior is weird enough that I try to avoid saying something never happens. In a world where a woman has years of plastic surgery to make her look like a lion, almost anything is possible. But your general point is correct. In the study I linked to above none of the women accessing abortion services were using it in that way ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1619322/ ). If this happens, it is extremely rare, and making it part of the policy/morality/legality discussion is like including the stunt-riding of Evel Knievel in a traffic study meant to determine whether your village needs more traffic lights or speed bumps.

Despite all the “you want to believe” strawman nonsense, I think that you did find another point on which we should all be able to agree:

No matter what we think about legal restrictions on abortion, we need to bolster supportive services for adoption and for mothers who decide to keep their baby so that no pregnant woman ever believes that abortion is the only viable choice for her.