White House Invites Right-Wingers to Discuss Abortion Reduction

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Right Wing Watch notes the White House has invited anti-abortion representatives from the religious right to a meeting next Tuesday with Josh DuBois, head of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, to discuss ways to reduce abortions. Among those attending will be Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council and Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

That’s the same Wendy Wright who has declared that President Obama and Congress are “more hostile to unborn children, to marriage, to religious freedom, to free speech, to protecting our country than has ever existed in our history.” And when Obama lifted the ban on Federally funded stem cell research, Wright blasted the move, saying it “financially benefits those seeking to strip morality from science. It is politics at its worst.”

Considering Wright’s disparaging rhetoric—and similarly critical comments from other Evangelical groups—their invitation to meet with the White House puzzled me: The pro-life stance offers very little, if any, middle ground. Why, then, include pro-life hardliners in a discussion on abortion reduction?

At the very least, the move demonstrates Obama’s commitment to listening to and talking with the opposition. It also further distances Obama’s administration from George Bush, who never reached out similarly to representatives of groups with views as hostile toward his positions. As a spokesman for NARAL told me via email, “Unless you count getting thrown off the grounds of the FDA for trying to deliver petitions on birth-control access, then no, we were never invited to meet with the Bush administration.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate