Yesterday, Brian Ackerman from Advocates for Youth held a brown bag lunch to discuss whether or not the Obama administration and others' "common ground" messaging around reproductive health was regressive or progressive. It was a great discussion, focusing on the dangers of compromise, but also its potential.

I came to the discussion skeptical of the "common ground" messaging: as someone who works with abortion providers and women seeking abortions, I see all to well that common ground ideas pioneered in the 90s with the Democrats' "safe, legal, rare" and prevention first messaging often play out by continuing to stigmatize those involved in abortions and keep it a dirty topic. I am also worried by the Obama administration's framing of sexuality as just about reproduction in its naming of sexual education as "teen pregnancy prevention", because that leaves out everyone for whom sexuality is not only about reproduction, and leaves out valuable information (such as STI prevention).

Finally, the ultimate cynic in me thinks this won't work because we are still focusing on reproduction and women's health as something entirely seperate from the rest of health and life issues, and when in that past has that really worked? Obama is right when he said the right to choose is about women's equality- and as long as we keep women's reproductive choices in a seperate category it is only too easy to continue to oppress women through thier reproduction.

But, there were some good points made that almost convinced me. I know that the new messaging is just that; messaging designed for political reasons. And bills such as the DeLauro-Ryan Bill are beginning to move, when others have failed in the past. Even more compellingly, the divisions between moderate anti-choicers who favor prevention (such as Rep. Ryan) and more extreme anti-choice groups are widening, splintering the poles are each side of this debate and hopefully moving us past a stalemate in the debate. Even if this does not play out, people argued, it is better than nothing (which is what we have been getting for far too long).

I'm still unconvinced, however. There is still a dichotomy between our Rep. Ryans, who focus on reducing numbers, and our Pres. Obamas who focus on reducing need. While it sounds like the same thing, it is very different, because a need-based frame should never concede on legal restrictions and focuses on the individual (hopefully then resulting in lower numbers), while a numbers-based frame could concede legal restrictions and doesn't focus on the individual. In short: one is a human rights frame, and one is not. My worry, is that in compromising, we will cross that crucial line and people will be hurt.