This fall, Catholics for a Free Choice launches a new national public education campaign, Prevention Not Prohibition, which contributes to efforts to reframe the abortion debate by focusing on building a national consensus to prevent, not prohibit, abortion.

Many Americans are tired of the polarization between the two sides in the abortion debate camps and want to hear about policies that reduce the need for abortion. We feel our emphasis and that of groups like NARAL on a higher priority on prevention mirrors the real desires of women and couples who face tough, often no-win choices, about continuing or terminating pregnancy.

Prevention Not Prohibition is a multifaceted campaign. In addition to advocating in favor of the right to choose abortion, the campaign emphasizes reducing the need for abortion through efforts to both prevent unintended pregnancy and help women with unintended pregnancies who choose not to have abortions. We believe that the first step must be to convince policymakers at all levels of government to introduce and fund initiatives that both promote access to and education about contraception and offer serious economic support to women who have unintended pregnancies.

At a cultural and value level, we will also stress the theme of personal responsibility: the public rightly wants opinion leaders, including in the prochoice movement, to acknowledge that individuals and government both have roles to play in reducing unintended pregnancy.

The campaign is both “soft” and “hard.” It calls on policymakers to fund prevention efforts. It also reaches out to Americans who are prochoice, but worried that abortion is not taken seriously or believe restriction, not prevention, is the answer.

Although the ad campaign is being launched in late October, CFFC has already been involved in a number of activities that complement Prevention Not Prohibition.

• In 2005, CFFC lobbied congressional Republicans and Democrats to support and cosponsor New York representative Louise Slaughter’s Prevention First Act—a comprehensive and commonsense package of initiatives designed to greatly reduce unintended pregnancies and abortion, including through additional funding for Title X. In the Senate, minority leader Harry Reid and New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton sponsored a similar measure.

• In December 2005, CFFC held a strategy session with 45 prochoice Catholic state legislators from across the country about injecting the values and philosophy of the Prevention First initiative into their work. The meeting was hosted in conjunction with the Center for Policy Alternatives. This was followed by a spring 2006 meeting cosponsored by CFFC and the Center for American Progress at which the leadership of the prochoice movement met to discuss strategies for changing the dialogue on choice and underscoring the movement’s commitment to reducing unintended pregnancies.

• In 2006, CFFC helped craft the Reducing the Need for Abortions and Supporting Parents Act, a joint initiative of members of Congress with prochoice, mixed and antichoice voting records, sponsored by representatives Tim Ryan (OH) and Rosa DeLauro (CT). This legislation brings together core methods of pregnancy prevention and abortion reduction with initiatives designed to assist women who decide to carry their unplanned pregnancies to term. The major congressional support for this bill is among Catholic Democrats, a group CFFC has been working with since the November 2004 elections. We publicized the bill by issuing a press release, and our president, Frances Kissling, wrote an article about the initiative on Salon.com.

• In order to take the prevention discussion outside Washington, CFFC visited Massachusetts, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada and New Mexico to meet with prochoice Catholic legislators and advocates.  The discussions focused on our Catholic commitment to reducing unintended pregnancies and empowering women and their families to make the decisions that are right for them, given their own priorities and consciences.

• Later this year, CFFC is welcoming more prochoice Catholic legislators to Washington for a facilitated strategy session called Progressive, Prochoice and Catholic: Claiming the Moral High Ground. In addition to exploring new strategies and continuing to develop this network of public servants, CFFC and the Center for Policy Alternatives will highlight the new language of prevention and the need to reduce unintended pregnancies. Like at last year’s session, legislators will come from every region of the United States, a diverse group representing the breadth of the prochoice Catholic movement.

• The theme of the Winter 2006-2007 issue of our newsjournal, Conscience, is Prevention.  It features a cover story on preventing the need for abortion. In addition, journalist Jodi Enda examines how prevention is driving today’s prochoice agenda, CFFC president Frances Kissling considers how we can do more to prevent the need for abortion, and James Trussell and Lisa Wynn ask whether reducing unintended pregnancy is an attainable goal in the United States. Conscience is not only received by all members of Congress and several thousand reporters and opinion leaders, but also on the magazine racks of over 150 bookstores.

In October, we start a major advertising campaign that will take our message to Washington state, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota, where voters decide  on Nov. 7 whether to uphold or discard a ban on all abortion excepting only those to save the life of the mother.  Come 2007, we will focus on carrying the Prevention Not Prohibition message to the rest of the nation.

Preventing unwanted pregnancies is not simply a question of personal responsibility, as some antichoice groups argue, but a matter of national priority. The Prevention Not Prohibition campaign recognizes that abortion is morally complex. In doing so publicly, CFFC hopes to give individuals and policymakers a break from polarizing rhetoric and clear the way for practical policies that protect women’s freedom and moral agency while reducing the incidence of abortion.

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