The only reason to refer to abortion "on demand" is to depict it as unnecessary, an elective procedure like plastic surgery. We don't speak of "heart catheterizations on demand," after all. Children demand things, and that sort of infantilization is what this language is about.* Because God knows that women are never faced with moral and existential crises like men. They're not capable of them.

And why, precisely, do we "have a moral obligation to find common ground"? I suppose to help women and families "make other choices".

But think this through with me. On the one hand, there are people who want to preserve the right to bodily self-determination given to them by the law. On the other hand, there are people who are determined to take that right away, and as McFadden himself points out, are a hair's breadth of doing just that. They are philosophically and doctrinally and politically and every other way imaginable opposed to abortion. Along with preservation of the "traditional family" (read: patriarchal authority), opposition to abortion forms the center of their moral and political self.

They are, in short, extremists.

And we have to split the difference with them why?

I'm not writing this to bash Eric McFadden, and in any case, he's got an account here so he can come on to defend himself. But the only way to make sense of the argument as he's framed it is to assume that abortion is a moral bad, and that women need to be guided away from them.

All of McFadden's policy proposals are good and fine and laudable things in themselves. They will without a doubt improve the lives of women.

But they are themselves "controversial": the Religious Right hates sex ed, they routinely decry its presence in public schools. Many of them are just as opposed to Griswold as they are Roe, and consider birth control a form of abortion. The Republican candidate can't even wrap his head around the idea of requiring health plans to pay for birth control and Viagra, and all the while, it's getting harder and harder for women to find a place that will provide a medical service that is nominally legal.

The strategic mistake here is to assume that the conservative interest is in reducing abortion. It's not: that's only a positive result of the real interest, which is in regulating women's sexuality. You can make all of the "common ground" proposals you like, but there's actually not room for compromise at all.

And lest you think that those statements only apply to the hard-core religious Right, let's not forget who will be moderating the event at Saddleback:

NPR's [Melissa] Block reminded [Rick Warren] that in 2004, he sent out a letter to pastors describing his five "non-negotiable" issues: abortion, gay marriage, human cloning, stem-cell research and euthanasia. She asked if that was still his list.

Consider these excerpts from his answer: "Well, they might be for me. It doesn't necessarily mean they're for everybody in the nation. I have my own convictions, but I also believe in the common good. I think that's part of democracy. You have a right to promote whatever view you hold, and you have a right to try to convince me that I ought to change my mind...

"On a personal level, if I were sending out a letter today, my view hasn't changed one bit on any of those particular subjects. But my agenda has expanded dramatically over the last four years. And I think one of the things I've tried to do with evangelicals is to get them to not deny their pre-existing agenda but to expand it.

"I'm still pro-life, but I don't call myself pro-life anymore. What I do is call myself 'whole-life.' I'm not just in favor of the unborn baby. I'm in favor of her when she's born. Is she a crack baby? Is she an AIDS baby? Is she a baby living in poverty? Is she going to get an education? It's not just concern for protection of the unborn but for protection of the born, too."

Uh-huh. It's nice that he wants to take care of the babies, but read what he says: my view hasn't changed one bit on any of those particular subjects. His views aren't less extreme than the other conservative Christians, they're just mixed in with different items on the To Do list.

And in the meantime, reproductive rights are hanging on by a thread, James Dobson and his buddies want to control women's bodies, and the Democrats religious outreach specialists want the storyline to be that progressives make nice with conservative Evangelicals so we can all have tea and think of the children together.

Tell you what: pass the ERA, then get back to me on that.

Fortunately, the abortion reduction meme hasn't made it very far, according to Fred Clarkson:

Abortion is specifically mentioned in two places in the Democratic Party's 2008 draft] [ platform:

Under Affordable Health Care:

   We oppose the current Administration's consistent attempts to undermine a woman's
   31 ability to make her own life choices and obtain reproductive health care, including birth
   32 control. We will end health insurance discrimination against contraception and provide
   33 compassionate care to rape victims. We will never put ideology above women's health.

And...

   Choice
   19 The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's
   20 right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any
   21 and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.
   22
   23 The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to affordable family planning
   24 services and comprehensive age-appropriate sex education which empowers people to
   25 make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care
   26 and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce
   27 the need for abortions.
   28
   29 The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman's decision to have a child by
   30 ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre- and post-natal health care,
   31 parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.

This is bound to be controversial. It is every time it comes up. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see stories appearing in certain media outlets about how Democrats are stepping on their own toes as they attempt to reach out to swing Evangelicals. Here's hoping that Obama resists the bait.

*I should make clear that I don't think McFadden intends this meaning, but the language is derived from the pro-life frame, which definitely does carry that connotation.