‘Abortion Talks’: How six women found respect despite disagreement

The Rev. Anne Fowler and Frances Hogan talked about abortion for six years and neither changed their mind. But both saw their lives changed.

The two women were part of what became known as the Abortion Talks. After a gunman killed two women and injured five others at two abortion clinics in Massachusetts in 1994, there was a recognition that rhetoric had passed from toxic to dangerous. So six leaders in the abortion debate – all women, three from each side – agreed to begin talking.

The product was not common ground. If anything, at the end of six years of wrenching conversations, the women were only more committed to their activism. Instead, the product was genuine affection, no small amount of laughter, and a deep understanding of people who before had only been enemies.

This week, the National Week of Conversation convenes people with these same hopes – the realization that a healthy democracy does not mean agreement, it means respect. “The Abortion Talks: A Documentary” is being released and shown in coordination with the week’s events.

Years later, as the Supreme Court dramatically shifts abortion law, the women’s conviction is undimmed: The path to changing the national conversation about abortion – or any divisive topic – is not in agreement, but in the vulnerability to honestly listen and love.

What was apparent from the first session was that there was no way even to start the conversation. Each side was speaking a different language – a language that felt intentionally harmful to the other side. Before anything could begin, they had to agree on a common language.

“The process held it all together,” says Ms. Hogan, a lawyer and president of Women Affirming Life. “We didn’t have the words to discuss things with one another. ... It took forever to decide what we would call an unborn child.”

After much discussion, they settled on “human fetus,” which none found terribly satisfying. They also settled on “pro-choice” and “pro-life” for the two sides and asked for those terms to be used in this article.

Ms. Fowler, an Episcopal priest and member of the board of directors for the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, came to the talks somewhat more prepared – or so she thought.

“I had been participating in dialogue talks with our church – we called them ‘sacred conversations’ – to develop ways to talk across differences. So when this program came up, I was very honored to be selected. This is part of my calling, part of my ministry. ... I knew what to expect, and yet I didn’t.”

All three pro-life participants were Roman Catholic, which put Fowler – as the only pro-choice member of faith – in a uniquely uncomfortable position.

“I’m representing the Episcopal Church. I needed to stand up against three Vatican Catholics,” she says. “They didn’t know what to make of me. They didn’t understand how a person calling herself a Christian could be pro-choice. I felt I was being held to a higher standard. Once, I asked them if they felt I was a moral person. They couldn’t answer.”

Ms. Hogan acknowledges that she had significant reservations at the beginning – not only her own scruples, but how her participation might be viewed by fellow pro-life activists.

“At first, I didn’t want any part of it. I didn’t want to talk to anyone on the other side. We felt that if people within our community knew, they’d feel we were caving in.”

So they all kept it a secret. There was a 100% confidentiality rule. That gave them the space to begin talking. But once they started, they found they did not want to stop. The original plan was to hold four meetings over the course of a month. But every time they came to the end, they asked if the talks could continue – for another six years.

None of them were changing their positions. If anything, the talks were deepening their commitment to the positions they held before the talks began.

“It freed you to dig very deeply,” Ms. Hogan says. “Why do you believe what you do, and do you really believe it?”

For Ms. Fowler, the experience was even more intense.

“It is very rare to have an opportunity to spend time with people with whom you profoundly disagree, talking specifically about the thing you disagree about. I had to repeatedly explain my beliefs to people who disagreed with me,” she says.

But the result was strengthening. “I came away from the experience more committed to my activism as a priest,” she adds. “I’ve worked very hard to be able to articulate a Christian pro-choice theology – to get a personal theology of compassion for women undergoing difficult decisions has been very important.”

What was changing was the women’s views of one another – and the ability to turn the toxic rhetoric into something constructive, even energizing.  

“We talked a lot about respect. Can you respect people if you don’t respect their position? One ought to be able to. I found it difficult,” Ms. Fowler says. “But the other side became humanized. They became real people I did not necessarily respect but I had a kind of love for. We had a lot of laughs. We all can understand the passion of the other side.”

Ms. Hogan struggled with the same contradictions.

“As we came to know each other we came to like each other. We knew there would never be common ground, and there never was. But that didn’t stop us from being friends,” she says. “We were able to open channels of communication that never existed before. We’re all human. We share humanity. I never had any respect for their position, but I had tremendous respect for them as human beings.”

To Susan Podziba, who convened the group and crafted the ground rules with her colleague, Laura Chasin, this is what she calls “civic fusion” – the counterintuitive fact that “people can bond across differences.”

“At the end of the meetings, the participants would say it felt sacred. There is energy in the contradictions,” she says. “There can be a love and and respect, but there is also a sadness that there is a space you are unable to get across. The reality is that there are always differences. The question is how we deal with deep differences.”

For Ms. Hogan and Ms. Fowler, the answers were both intensely personal and of profound importance for a nation politically defined by hyperpolarization.

For Ms. Hogan, that began with learning what it is to listen.

“It’s amazing how often what you heard is not what they actually said. The ability to really listen and respond to what was really said, not what you thought was said,” she says. “Very few people had the experience we had, but if they had, our conversation would be at a different level.”

“It has been an amazing part of my life, a very moving experience,” she adds.

Ms. Fowler agrees.

“There was a lot of healing that went on. And there was a lot of healing in me. I was healed of anger and disrespect and dehumanizing of the other,” she says.

If the whole country could take that journey, what would change?

“There would be a great comfort,” she says. “I feel very comfortable with the others [in the group]. I feel fond of them. We care about each other. Minds might not change, but we were not enemies to one another. If people could stop seeing the other side as enemies, it could be the coming of the promised land.”

The crucial step to broadening such fellowship, says Ms. Podziba, is a willingness to see differences not as threatening, but the invigorating force of a healthy democracy.

“We didn’t try to reach consensus on abortion policy, because that was not possible,” she says. “Our common goal was to change the rhetoric in the abortion debate and to reduce violence against born people and property.”

Both women agree the talks unequivocally succeeded.

Adds Ms. Podziba: “You don’t have to fear losing your identity or values by engaging in respectful conversation with those who disagree with you when you bring curiosity into the conversation.”