Abortion

Abortion is, by any measure, the most emotionally charged issue in America today. Strong feelings on both sides often make genuine dialogue difficult, since people struggle to hear arguments from the other side. Dobbs eliminated the federal right to a legal early-term abortion that had existed under Roe v. Wade, though it stopped short of imposing a federal ban. Instead, Dobbs returned the question to the states, allowing each to ban abortion outright or guarantee a right to it.

For millions of Americans living in states that have since enacted bans, this represents a severe reduction in access to abortion.Conservatives generally favor banning early-term abortions. Some support exceptions for rape or incest, and a smaller number would allow an exception when the mother's life is at risk — though most favor a complete ban even in these circumstances. These positions are typically grounded in moral conviction, with many conservatives viewing abortion as a violation of law tantamount to murder.

Liberals view Dobbs as a major setback for women's rights and bodily autonomy. Nearly all liberals support banning abortion later in pregnancy, while almost universally favoring access to abortion in cases of rape, incest, or risk to the mother's life. Many also feel forced to refight a battle over a right they considered long settled, now contingent on geography.

Whatever one's view of that history, the Supreme Court has ruled, and the issue is now being relitigated state by state.

Centrists recognize that Americans hold a wide range of deeply felt positions on this issue, spanning the full spectrum. They believe both sides' convictions deserve respect, and that extreme or inflammatory rhetoric from either direction should be avoided — not least because it raises the risk of real-world violence.

Centrists believe strong access to contraception is a core part of the solution. Every unwanted pregnancy prevented through contraception is one fewer abortion — the very outcome conservatives object to most. Centrists hope to build broad conservative support for expanding contraceptive access on these grounds.

Nearly all centrists support early-term abortion access in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life. These exceptions strike most people as far more reasonable than the alternative: forcing rape victims, incest victims, or women facing life-threatening pregnancies to carry to term under such circumstances.

Centrists also draw a clear distinction between abortion and murder. Murder itself is a legal category with many gradations — first-degree murder, capital murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, and others — each reflecting different circumstances and culpability. Treating abortion as simply equivalent to murder ignores the real differences in kind: an abortion occurs within a woman's own body and carries a set of medical, personal, and legal considerations distinct from the killing of another person. To call the millions of women who have had abortions "murderers," on par with those convicted of the most heinous crimes, injects emotion into the debate at the expense of an honest reckoning with these differences. For this reason, the large majority of centrists oppose criminalizing women who obtain abortions — they don't view abortion as murder, and therefore don't believe it should carry criminal punishment.

Centrists believe there is a wide range of policies — substantially reducing the number of abortions while also strengthening support for families with children — that people across the political spectrum should be able to embrace.