Score one for the right in abortion rights battle that leaves no winners

It must be the world's longest-running game of ideological pingpong. In 1984, Ronald Reagan aimed an overhand smash at international organizations, pledging that America would not give family planning money to any group counseling or referring women for abortions. Ping.

In 1993, Bill Clinton revoked the Global Gag Rule two days after he took office. Pong.

In 2001, George W. Bush immediately signed the gag order back in place Ping.

Now Barack Obama has rescinded it. Pong, anyone?

Obama's act was greeted with the familiar cheers and jeers of old rhetorical enemies, but I heard a different voice. In a quiet statement the new man in the White House described abortion as "a political wedge issue, the subject of a back-and-forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate."

The president pledged to do more than lower the volume. "In the coming weeks, my administration will initiate a fresh conversation on family planning, working to find areas of common ground to best meet the needs of women and families at home and around the world."

Well, I've been around too long to be optimistic about beating this pingpong table into common ground. One Bush's final acts was signing a regulation to let any institution refuse to provide services such as emergency contraception. On Inauguration Day, CatholicVote.org aired a video on BET that perverted Obama's life story into an ad against abortion. Then right-to-life marchers bore posters depicting the new, pro-choice president as "Adolf Obama."

But I shared a modicum of hope for a "fresh conversation." Pro-choice arguments won on Election Day from South Dakota to Colorado to Washington, D.C. But what also won was the promise of pragmatism over ideology.

It's not news that Americans want to reduce the number of abortions. This may not be as exciting as the pings and pongs of a political confrontation, but it signals agreement in favor of sex education that's accurate and contraception that's affordable and available.

Many pro-choice supporters too are eager to move from a defensive crouch protecting rights to an open stance in favor of both prevention and a wider support system for families.

But before the first week was out, there was another loud and disruptive pong.

The balky Republican leadership jumped on a provision in the proposed economic stimulus plan that would allow states to expand family planning under Medicaid. Minority Leader John Boehner fumed in high cable-talk-show over spending "hundreds of millions on contraceptives. How does that stimulate the economy?"

I'm not sure if family planning expansion would stimulate the economy any more or less than the rest of $87 billion for Medicaid in the plan. But I am sure why it was targeted. The right wing was back.

It's disheartening how swiftly Obama caved. This is the president who promised to "reach out to those on all sides of this issue to achieve the goal of reducing unintended pregnancies." One shot from the right and he told Congress to drop family planning.

Women's health was reframed as pork and dumped as no more fundamental to family life than the proposal to refurbish the National Mall. All this in an elusive quest for bipartisan support. As Kissling sighed, "This tired and stale debate got a tired and stale reaction. Is it the old story, that women are expendable?"

These are hard times. When jobs go, so does health insurance as well as coverage for contraception. In a tough economy, people face hard decisions about child bearing and rearing. Unplanned pregnancies rise and with them, yes, abortions.

So, what happened to that fresh conversation? Where did that common ground go? Score this one for the ideologues.

© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group