There is very little room for changing people’s minds about abortion morality. But ruling that out leaves brute political power as the only lever to get justice. Liberals end up mirroring the corrupt GOP as hating, winning and pwning take priority over liberal values like compassion and belief in redemption.
I guess I am unique in that I grew up seeing both sides of this; I had a parent who worked as a social worker for Catholic Charities despite being pro-choice and not Christian. Our heathen family’s livelihood came from the salary that the Catholic church paid to take care of unloved children. There are many mainstream Christians who actually do walk their talk in terms of valuing lives of kids as much as fetuses. Of course there are many who don’t walk their talk as well, and just want to take the easy route of supporting coercion.
I also come from a background informed by Nonviolent Communication (NVC): the idea that behind the good/bad and right/evil dichotomies we are all the same: simply trying to meet our needs. The main need that uterus-coercives are trying to meet is that of caring for others. Of course the strategies they use don’t actually meet that need. So the goal from an NVC perspective is to help them develop better strategies for meeting that need for caring for others.
Even if it doesn’t feel like it in this moment, this is actually happening as we speak among those who are persuadable. Every day the base of the religious right decreases as more and more people leave, realizing that their church doesn’t deliver the caring that was promised.
Reinforcing the reality that the left is about warm caring not shrill coercion, and that there is a place where we can ALL come together, is the way.
