The Common Ground Network For Life And Choice

From 1993 to 2000, SFCG sponsored a project called The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice (The Network). The project goal was to change the dynamic of the abortion conflict in the United States by changing the stance of the opposing parties, from one defined solely by disagreement and characterized by extreme polarization, to one where strong disagreement is acknowledged but where the parties (1) seek to fully understand the others' positions and beliefs, and the issue; (2) seek and name the existence of overlapping values, goals, beliefs and important interests (the common ground); and (3) consider ways to act jointly to move forward shared goals. The Network extended to 20 cities and two national conferences were held to link and leverage local efforts for national impact. The Network worked intensively in two communities where the abortion debate escalated into violence - Buffalo, New York and Pensacola, Florida. Teen pregnancy prevention, adoption, and the promotion of civil debate and common ground were priority common ground action areas for local community ground groups. The Network's national Steering Committee of pro-choice and pro-life advocates produced three jointly authored papers: Common Ground on Adoption; Common Ground on Teen Pregnancy Prevention; and Common Ground on Clinic Activism (a clinic director and pro-life sidewalk counselor exploring the ethical dimensions of advocacy activity around clinics.)

Primary support for the Network came from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Kellogg Foundation, and the Public Welfare Foundation

How did the project get started?
In the winter of 1993 Search for Common Ground seized an opportunity to transform the abortion debate in America. All of SFCG's existing projects were international at the time. However, a few years earlier Search had produced, with PBS, a television series that asked, "What's the common ground?" about a range of hot domestic issues. Abortion was one. SFCG's ambition was to transform the way America deals with the abortion conflict - away from adversarial approaches toward cooperative solutions.

The opportunity for a hands-on project came when community activists associated with the Buffalo, New York Council of Churches, sought Search's help to defuse the tensions created by an Operation Rescue Spring of Life campaign and create a sustained effort to build common ground. With a shoestring budget and two part time staff the immediate challenge was to develop a working model for promoting community-level pro-choice/pro-life dialogue in Buffalo, and we hoped, beyond. Building upon a dialogue process designed by Dr. Adrienne Kaufmann, one of the original co-directors, SFCG developed an effective approach for bringing pro-choice and pro-life partisans into constructive conversation.

A National Network is created.
In 1993 there were already groundbreaking common ground efforts in several cities around the country. SFCG gathered these veterans from St. Louis, Milwaukee, San Francisco and Boston to advise us on how to proceed. Everyone agreed that what was needed was a "central office" at SFCG to link local efforts; develop and distribute resource materials; provide professional services in the way of facilitation, training and organizing; handle and cultivate the media; encourage and support new efforts and promote national projects. A Steering Committee balanced between pro-choice and pro-life and representing local efforts, came together out of a mutual commitment to foster another approach to the abortion debate.

What were the Network's activities?

• Designed and facilitated community level dialogue, trained facilitators in the dialogue process - hundreds over the course of the project, and helped local groups create the infrastructure for ongoing dialogue and work.
  

• Wrote and distributed a facilitation and organizing resource manual and other materials.
  

• Linked common ground efforts in a steering committee, newsletter, and national conferences.
  

• Disseminated common ground ideas on a national lever through jointly authored papers on adoption, teen pregnancy and clinic activism, and through speaking and media outreach.
  

• Worked with other organizations applying and extending the dialogue approach. Partners included the Public Conversations Project, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the Washington National Cathedral, and the Aspen Institute.
  

• Piloted email pro-life, pro-choice dialogues.
  

• Brought together confidential national level meetings to explore shared values and goals.

What are some examples of common ground identified by pro-choice and pro-life advocates?

• Preventing teen pregnancy
  

• Making adoption more accessible as a choice
  

• Avoiding/preventing outbreaks of violence and rebuilding community, post-violence.
  

• Increasing options for women
  

• Reducing the conditions that lead to a high rate of abortion (e.g., conflict between work and family.
  

• Working together in the legislative arena to support jointly supported measures (e.g., assistance for drug addicted women, sex education curricula in schools, welfare reform proposals reducing the impact on working mothers.)

What is the Common Ground Approach?
The goal is to transform the dynamics of the abortion conflict, not settle or resolve the core conflict. The idea is to reduce polarization and hostility and promote a level of trust between the adversaries so that they can gain a deeper understanding of the conflict over abortion and the motivations, interests and values reflected in people's positions; coexist peacefully and with civility, with debate focused on the merits of their contrasting beliefs, not on stereotyped and dehumanized "enemies"; locate common ground; and act together when it serves their mutual interests and the common good. This is the area we call the "common ground" - shared belief in the need for such things as: *preventing teen pregnancy *providing practical assistance to people facing crisis/unwanted pregnancies *renouncing violence against abortion providers *building dialogue and conflict resolution skills in the larger community *raising the level of knowledge and understanding about adoption *reducing the conflict between family and work *increasing male sexual responsibility.

Changing the relationships between the adversaries in this way contributes to a higher level of discourse on abortion and related issues, one that can reveal the elements of truth in each perspective (there are some) and the areas of overlapping values and interests where working together might make a difference. In turn this builds community, recognition of mutual interdependence and an understanding of how people with profound differences can live and work together to make a better world.

Common Ground Concepts
Dialogue is at the heart of the common ground approach. Dialogue is different from debate. Debate is about persuading others that your views are "right" and that the views of others are "wrong." The goals of dialogue center around increasing understanding and being understood rather than persuading others and being "right." It is a process in which people are asked to respect and acknowledge the humanity of the people present regardless of their points of view.

Dialogue in a sustained and polarized conflict is aimed at changing the relationship between people who see each other as demonized adversaries.

The common ground approach is a search for what is genuinely shared. We illustrate this by the image of two interlocking circles.

Each circle represents a point of view about abortion (one circle, pro-life, the other pro-choice). A common ground process recognizes the integrity of each circle as a complete set of concerns, beliefs and values around this issue. It focuses attention on and explores the area of intersection or overlap. This is where shared concerns, beliefs and values are located. The common ground "space" is also a perspective for examining differences where everyone works together to try to understand the conflict rather than facing off to argue. This tends to make the differences less threatening and more comprehensible. In our experience people always find the area of overlap larger than anticipated.

Common ground is not compromise. Searching for common ground is not about compromising to reach a middle position but about focusing on areas of genuinely shared values and concerns. People are not asked to change their views on abortion or pretend agreement where it does not exist.

A common ground approach encourages looking beyond the labels and the stereotypes. A common ground approach assumes that even in a polarized conflict, people's views fall on a continuum.

Pro-life________________|__________________Pro-choice

When people identify themselves as "pro-choice" or "pro-life," they are only placing themselves somewhere on the continuum other than the exact center. This idea of a continuum encourages awareness of how little we can assume about another person's set of beliefs if all we know about them is that they choose one label over the other. It allows recognition of the diversity on both sides and discovery that two given people with same label may be as different by some other criteria as are two people with different labels because there are issues that cut across the pro-choice/pro-life divide. Capital punishment and welfare reform are examples. The continuum provides a way for people to nuance their own positions on abortion in ways that the labels do not. Encouraging people to think in terms of a continuum fosters curiosity, rather than assumptions, about what people believe.

A common ground approach encourages connective thinking. Debates tend to focus attention on the weaknesses of the speakers and to encourage a search for the flaws in what is said. In dialogue we ask people to engage in connective thinking - to focus attention on where they agree or resonate with the other's experience and/or beliefs, to listen for the pieces of truth in what is said. Where people place their focus really influences what they hear and remember.

Common ground dialogue encourages the sharing of personal experience. Personal experiences cannot be argued with like positions can be. Experiences are not agreed or disagreed with. They are. Hearing a person explain how they arrived at their pro-life or pro-choice positions invites understanding responses from those who hear them. They are a constructive place to begin. Common ground dialogue encourages genuine questions. Genuine questions are questions asked in a spirit of real curiosity and a sincere interest in learning the answers. Rhetorical or leading questions are not genuine questions. They are questions where we already know the answers -- we just want it said so we can make our rebuttal. They are statements disguised as questions that really cannot be answered. "Why don't pro-life people care about children after they are born?" "Why aren't pro-choice people concerned about women after they have the abortion?" These questions work as traps, not as openings to learning. A genuine question on the other hand invites an honest answer: "What do you pro-life activists do for the children who are born?" "Do you pro-choice activists concern yourselves with the longer-term impact abortion may have on a woman?"

Click here for the The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice Manual in pdf format.

Click here for the The Common Ground Network for Life and Choice Manual in Word format.