David Gushee and Frances Kissling — Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Dialogue (July 25, 2013)

No issue in America is more intractable than abortion. Or is it? The issue of abortion has again raised its divisive head. Lost in that specter is the enduring fact that most of us don't identify with the absolute positions of always for, or always against, abortion. We never start our public discussions in that nuanced moral center. We wonder why this issue remains so contentious — and what might be at stake in it for us as a culture — that gets hidden by political stalemate? In this podcast, two people demonstrate a different way forward is possible. Frances Kissling, a longtime reproductive rights activist: "Abortion very late in pregnancy, abortion of disabled fetuses, these to me are very, very complicated questions. Even though I don't think fetuses have an absolute right to life, I think fetuses have value. And I don't think you can make the fetus invisible." And David Gushee, a Christian ethicist: "A concern I have about my own side is, what the main activists in the pro-life or anti-abortion community want is an overturn of Roe vs. Wade. I am not at all convinced that if that were to actually happen that they would like the world that they would see on the other side." A conversation that doesn't begin or end in the predictable places. See more at www.onbeing.org/program/pro-life-pro-choice-pro-dialogue/4863