According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute of Planned Parenthood, 48% of the 3000 abortions every day are repeats(not the woman’s first abortion). In short, five out of every 10 abortions every day are repeats. Now, some of these repeating women will have no more abortions, so, for this rate of repeat to continue day after day, some of the women in the five who are having their first abortion will repeat. This means that something like seven or eight out of every 10 abortions is had by a woman who is either repeating or will go on to have another abortion. On the face of things, the large majority of women aborting each day are either using abortion as a primary means of birth control, rather than contraceptives, or as a backup for the erratic use of contraception.

The pro-life movement spends perhaps 50% of its financial resources on ministering to women who have a problem pregnancy. Organizations like Birthright assist women with free medical care, free housing, emotional support, and they set up adoptions for women who do not wish to keep the child, with families that provide financial support for the woman through the pregnancy. As things stood when last I checked, there were 40 families waiting to adopt each white newborn released for adoption in the USA. There are enough minority families to adopt minority newborns and, in case there are not, the minority newborn is released for adoption to white families, in which case she becomes adoptable many times over. So setting up this sort of arrangement isn’t terribly hard to do.

From the first the pro-life movement has emphasized the rights of women, no surprise as it is more often than not staffed and supported by women. It has long held that prohibiting abortion, while essential, is just part of what must be done. Women need practical alternatives to abortion. The solution to the abortion problem includes not just prohibition, but the feminization of society at a level that was cut short by giving women the expedient solution, get rid of your unborn child. Affordable childcare, a decisive end to this stigma of unmarried pregnancy, financial support for pregnant women, and so on. This was the program of militant feminists like Susan B. Anthony, who denounced abortion as ‘the unspeakable crime of child murder’ and supported the passing of the statutes that Roe V. Wade struck down. The underlying idea of pro-life feminists has been this: promoting the liberation of women by making women the mortal adversaries of children is no liberation at all, but a tragedy for all concerned.

So “compromise” is likely too strong a term. I think it is too hot an issue to really compromise in the sense of finding some agreeable middle ground. But I think that we can take from the good of the pro-choice camp (considering women in the issue and ensuring adequate facilities, etc.) and at least acknowledge that pro-choicers have good intentions and are not evil, vile people (despite what we think of abortion itself).