OK. Sounds better than Max Sawicky's 'let us build abortion-ambivalent "class-conscious" majority' dream. Non-left-believers who are workers are not a homogenious group, though. They are divided by races, religions, and within the same religion, by differences in denomination, school of thought, degree of social liberalism/conservativism, etc. (And those internal divides probably are of more importance to believers than the divide between, say, the atheist left and believers.) That we must talk with them is a general statement that both of us can agree on (and both of us have been already putting into practice). I assume the same about other atheist leftists and religious leftists. Beyound repeating this general statement, do you have some specific ideas, especially the ones that take into religious/denominational differences into account? For instance, how to start a dialog amont Zionist Jews (who are also internally divided into Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and liberal non-believers), Palestinian nationalist + devout Muslims, believers in the Nation of Islam, Pentecostals, Wiccans, and Southern Baptists? Any ideas?
>>Secondly, doesn't your definition of ecumenism above end up asking
>>determined pro-choice women to maintain our own separate fight--not only
>>for a legal right but also _access_ (i.e. state funding, insurance
>>coverage, doctor training, actual service provisions, etc.) to
>>abortion--outside the 'common ground,' since there may not be consensus on
>>the need for such a fight under ecumenical tolerance for differences?
>
>No, I don't believe that it requires that at all. Ecumenical tolerance for
>differences does not require that I ignore church-burnings in the name of
>dialog with Klansmen; nor does it say that we should bury our support of
>choice and the fight for access to services that make choice a reality
>rather than a fiction in the name of dialog with those who sincerely believe
>that life begins at conception and is more sacred than the right of a woman
>to choose. But if we demand that those pro-lifers abandon their religious
>conviction before we engage in a dialog that seeks to identify common
>interest that are the basis for common action, it is unlikely that any
>relationship will be possible, just as if they were to insist as a
>precondition that we agree that the state should have no role in assuring
>access to abortion and family planning services to all women without regard
>to ability to pay. Suppose, however, that we can agree to disagree about
>that for the moment and determine that there are some on both sides of that
>divide who can agree that affordable childcare, prenatal health services,
>quality preschool education, aid to education generally, access to
>healthcare, and a host of other "family values"-related issues are shared
>concerns that deserve our common attention. And suppose that in the course
>of work on those shared concerns both personal and political relationships
>developed that permitted a less emotional, accusatory, judgmental discussion
>that sought to expand the areas of agreement, narrow those of disagreement,
>and come to some accommodation on a greater range of issues that brought
>those believers into others struggles for social and class justice. Would
>that not represent an advance over what we now see?
You call it advance; I call it the status quo. We are already doing this 'agree to disagree' business, aren't we? And isn't that the reason why 83 % of counties in the USA have no abortion clinics, the average age of abortionists is higher than 60, young doctors are shunning (and even avoiding the training in) the practice of abortion, more and more restrictions (parental notification, parental consent, exclusion from health insurance coverage, mandated 'counseling' by doctors, etc.)? How do you propose to change this status quo for the better, and I mean _for the better for poor working-class women_ who need free or at least state-subsidized abortion and easy access to abortion providers?
>>What I am saying is this: even if many on this list decry 'identity
>>politics,' wouldn't ecumenism of this kind--which many here seem to also
>>desire--in fact encourage 'identity politics' even more, in that a fight
>>for substantial--not just legal--reproductive freedoms + rights can be only
>>waged outside the above definition of ecumenism?
>
>I don't think you will find in anything I have said in this discussion a
>single reference to "identity politics."
But you know the ideological climate of the 'Left' in the USA.
>Let's suppose you are correct, that the fight for reproductive freedoms &
>rights will be waged outside the boundaries of common interests I suggest
>above. But if our efforts to find areas of common concern on which we can
>work together has a consequence of pulling a portion of the religious
>community that presently identifies with the most virilent and reactionary
>elements of the Christian Right away from their orbit, and lowers the level
>of irrational emotionalism and invective that so frequently characterizes
>the debate over choice, wouldn't that represent an advance for the struggle
>for reproductive freedom and choice?
Maybe we have disagreements here. I think we have a moderately pro-choice majority, which includes both believers and non-believers, in the USA. This is a large majority. And within this majority there is a difference between those of us who desire free abortion on demand and other reproductive freedoms as essential to women's well-being and those who are 'ambivalent' about abortion. I think the former should speak to the latter and try to change their minds. Hard-core anti-abortionists are a minority in this country, and they are much harder to reach, and most likely they are not going to change their minds without simultaneously changing the nature of their religious belief. I say this because I take fundamentalists and their beliefs seriously.
I think your example of a dialog between environmentalists and construction trades is a good one. However, the context and nature of discussion change when we move to a question of Religion and Abortion.
in solidarity,
Yoshie