October 19, 2006
Clark Event Bridges the Abortion Divide through Dialogue
Prominent pro-life, pro-choice leaders will discuss their years of 'secret' meetings
Worcester, Mass. - The critical shift toward mutual respect and greater understanding in individuals who hold radically different beliefs is the focus of "Bridging the Abortion Divide: The Boston Story," a public forum beginning at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2, in the Daniels Theater, Atwood Hall, Downing Street. This forum is a part of the Difficult Dialogues program at Clark, which aims to foster discourse across differences.
Six Boston "pro-choice" and "pro-life" leaders will tell about secret meetings they began holding after December 1994, when John Salvi entered two Brookline clinics that provide reproductive health care services including abortion then shot and killed two people, and injured five others. The violence horrified and polarized those on both sides of the abortion divide and motivated Gov. William Weld and Cardinal Bernard Law to call for "common ground" talks.
The Cambridge-based Public Conversations Project (PCP), founded in 1989 by family therapist Laura Chasin, had drawn on clinical experience to develop an effective model for opening dialogue between people on opposite sides of the abortion issue. She and her colleagues brought experience in conducting constructive conversations that increase trust and mutual understanding among people in conflict about public issues—especially issues that challenge the world views and threaten the core values of those involved.
To help defuse the volatile climate and tone down inflammatory rhetoric in the Boston community, Chasin designed, convened and facilitated with public policy mediator Susan Podziba a private dialogue with a small group of activists.
Their dialogue continued in secret until 2001, when the participants made their meetings public in a January 28 Boston Sunday Globe article, "Talking with the Enemy." In this article, they admitted to major misgivings, even fear, about participating in meetings with the other side.
With firm ground rules to avoid inflammatory labels, personal attacks, and "hot buttons," however, the dialogues continued through the first anniversary of the murders. By then, while continuing to struggle over issues, according to their Globe article, the activists "also kept track of personal events in one another's lives, celebrating good times and sharing sorrows. As our mutual understanding increased, our respect and affection for one another grew."
"In these and all of our discussions of differences," the participants wrote, "we strained to reach those on the other side who could not accept—or at times comprehend—our beliefs. We challenged each other to dig deeply, defining exactly what we believe, why we believe it, and what we still do not understand."
The dialogue among the abortion leaders has continued and has explored many other challenging and controversial issues from different perspectives, including sex education, euthanasia, suicide, the death penalty, the role of law in society.
Clark's Difficult Dialogues forum gives a candid, personal view into this dialogue around the divisive issue of abortion. By bringing the panel into a public forum, Chasin and the Public Conversations Project hope "their story clarifies what dialogue is and shows that dialogue and passionate, effective advocacy can complement rather than dilute each other. We hope it will inspire advocates on both sides of other polarized public conflicts to refrain from using rhetoric that is demonizing or inflammatory and to establish direct, constructive communication with those whom they regard as their political adversaries."
Clark's year-long Difficult Dialogues program is funded by a $100,000 Ford Foundation grant given to 27 higher education institutions nationwide to promote genuine dialogue across differences. In events through fall 2007, Clark's Difficult Dialogues program will offer the University and Worcester community opportunities to appreciate, build and practice skills of dialogue. All of the events are co-sponsored by the Higgins School of Humanities and the International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE) Department at Clark. For more information, visit http://www.difficultdialogues.org.
Participating in the Nov. 2 Difficult Dialogues forum are:
• Laura Chasin, the founder and director of the Public Conversations Project (PCP). She brings to PCP a background in social work, family therapy and political science. Chasin and her colleagues have been conducting dialogues about abortion and many other deeply divisive public issues since 1990. She and Susan Podziba, a mediator from Brookline, MA, co-facilitated the private dialogues of the abortion activists.
• The Reverend Anne Fowler, rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Jamaica Plain, MA. She is a member of the Board of Mass NARAL Pro-Choice America, co-convener of the Clergy Advisory Board of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and chair of the Massachusetts Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry. Fowler has published two volumes of poems.
• Nicki Nichols Gamble, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts from 1974 to 1999. She is a director of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy and of IPAS, an international women's reproductive health care organization, and volunteers for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
• Frances Hogan, president of Women Affirming Life, consultant to the Pro-Life Committee of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, and past president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life. She is also a partner at the law firm of Lyne, Woodworth & Evarts. Hogan's special interests are community economic development and the creation and financing of affordable housing.
• Melissa Kogut, a longtime leader in the reproductive rights movement and executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts since 1995. She is currently the chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Choice.
• Madeline McComish, a chemist, served as president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL) for four years. She was the president of that organization when the Brookline clinic shootings occurred. She is on the Board of MCFL and currently serves as chairman of the North Suburban Chapter of Massachusetts Citizens for Life.
• Susan L. Podziba is a public policy mediator, known for designing processes that fit the unique characteristics of complex public policy conflicts. Since 1984, she has mediated and facilitated cases in areas such as governance, land use and development, and worker safety standards. She has taught negotiation and conflict resolution at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University.
• Barbara Thorp, a social worker by training, was director of the Pro-Life Office of the Archdiocese of Boston from 1985-2002. Since 2002, Barbara has been the director of the Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach, which coordinates and directs the response of the Archdiocese to victims of clergy abuse.