The Tennessee Liberal

Here's something I like: working with national issues on a local level.

E.J. Dionne's column today in the Post talks about how a New York politician is finding real middle ground on abortion.

The issue of abortion is always hard for faith-based liberals. As a feminist and a Democrat, I believe abortion should be safe, rare and legal. As a Christian (and as a human, for that matter) I believe that life is to be preserved whenever possible.

Here's an excerpt from Dionne's column:

Suozzi runs a county government, so more is asked of him than just a string of nice words. He has put $3 million in county funds on the table to support homes for single mothers, to promote adoptions and to provide information on all forms of family planning, including -- to hold the culture warriors at bay -- contraception, "natural family planning" and abstinence.

In recent weeks, I've also been reading Jim Wallis' (of Sojourners Magazine, among other organizations) new book, God's Politics. In it, he also emphasizes this need for the pro-choice community, especially those of us who are people of faith, to force the issue on really taking steps to reduce abortions. As Dionne's subject put it,

"A decade ago, I was attending Mass and a priest said that abortion would probably stay legal for the rest of his life," Suozzi said on the phone the other day. "It struck me at the time that maybe we should stop arguing about the legality of abortion and try to figure out how to reduce the number of abortions."

Here's where this really comes together for me, though: This is a way in which Democrats can stop talking and start walking on the abortion issue. By pointing to real information that shows education and options mean less abortions, we show that we are for a woman's constitutional right to control her own body and at the same time believe that we should do everything we can to reduce the number of abortions.

This makes good sense as policy, good sense morally and good sense politically. So what's stopping us?