Incoming Congress should enact legislation to reduce abortion rate

Although "[t]aking substantial steps to reduce the abortion rate will not settle the larger ethical argument over the practice," the "election of a new congressional majority" for the 110th Congress should "open the way for a better approach to the abortion question," Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes in a Post opinion piece.

The "bitter political brawling" over abortion during the past 30 years has caused an "unproductive stalemate" that has left antiabortion groups "frustrated," abortion-rights supporters "in a constant state of worry" and U.S. residents "who hold middle-ground positions feeling that there is no one who speaks for them," Dionne writes.

However, "the politics of abortion began to change" in September with the introduction of a bill (HR 6067) sponsored by Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who opposes abortion rights, and abortion-rights supporter Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) (Dionne, Washington Post, 11/21).

The measure would require states to cover contraceptives for women with annual incomes of up to 200% of the federal poverty level, establish grants for sex education programs and require programs with a focus on abstinence to include thorough instruction on contraceptives.

The legislation also would increase funding for health care for low-income women with children, provide no-cost visits from nurses to teens and women who have given birth for the first time, expand a tax credit for adoption and fund child care services for parents in college (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 9/20).

There are "moral and practical reasons" for Democrats, Republicans, abortion-rights supporters and abortion-rights opponents to support the bill, Dionne writes. "Why shouldn't both sides embrace broader steps that, without coercion, could cut the abortion rate by much larger numbers?"

Dionne asks, concluding that if Congress acts to curb the abortion rate, "it could show that politicians are capable of living up to their highest calling, which is to seek practical forms of moral seriousness" (Washington Post, 11/21).