Why can’t we talk about abortion? If we can't resolve our differences, we can at least change the tone of the debate

Two intensely serious moral goods are at stake. First is the freedom of a woman to control her own destiny in a world which is stacked against her; the freedom to choose the things she is prepared to ask her body to endure, and not be forced into the fundamentally self-sacrificial role of motherhood.

The second is the right of a vulnerable, voiceless and at least potentially tiny human to exist. Both these arguments have serious moral force, but they seem mutually exclusive. Each side picks the one they feel carries the most moral weight. If they — we — are honest, we admit that this choice is inevitably at the expense of the other. When dishonest, each seeks to erase the cost to the other and with this comes the utter erosion of trust.

This week, I’ve also been reading a new Rowan Williams lecture on political tribalism. He is typically brilliant at spearing our ludicrous tendency to see everyone as tribal except ourselves and says: “Political tribalism is above all a shrinkage of the scope of mutual recognition: I resolve not to think of the other’s view as sharing any of the moral anxieties or emotional tensions I experience.”

Mutual recognition in the abortion “debate” has broken down to such an extent that, as we’ve seen, individual pregnant woman are targeted with distressing images, and those who want to raise qualms about even late-stage, gender-specific or disability-focused abortions are written off as misogynists and bigots. Sally Phillips, the comic actor and mother of a child with Down’s Syndrome, has received torrents of abuse for suggesting that new tests and NHS procedures might be influencing women to terminate pregnancies unnecessarily. She is pro-choice herself.

The way this space is currently framed and the tactics being used are entrenching these divides, deeper and deeper, and the solution Williams offers is absurdly simple and fiendishly difficult. Listening.

“[we need to nourish] those practices…that allow space for hearing the memory of discovery and conviction that lies behind an opponent’s view and seeking to recognise comparable kinds of moral energy…   [we need to give] patient attention to stories and priorities not native to us; and this requires the construction of environments in which there is enough trust for such things to be articulated.”

I doubt we will ever resolve conflicts around abortion, because the starting points of moral reasoning and the underlying sacred values are so different. Many of those reading this will feel that to listen would be a distraction from the most important thing, which is winning – either ‘saving lives’ or ‘protecting women from ideological oppression’. The trouble is that the kind of tactics that we would use if winning were our only aim would actually do more harm than good.

I would guess, for instance, that Stella Creasy now feels more committed to her pro-choice position than she did before that billboard went up. The same goes for those who have called disability activists misogynists for wanting to think about the way legal late-stage abortions for minor disabilities frames the way we see disabled people.

Our instinctive psychological defence of our identity means that when we are presented with evidence or arguments which contest a deeply held belief, we are likely to harden our original position. Unless, of course, that evidence and those arguments are presented kindly, carefully, warmly — and by messengers we trust.

Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks, in their new book Messengers, which examines why we listen to some messengers and not others, argue there is one trait which trumps all others in efforts to persuade. Trustworthiness.

So while we doubtless can’t do anything to resolve this deep rift, we can at least change the terms of the debate so that is kinder to all those concerned, not least the many women for whom this is a live issue. Personally targeted billboards are not helpful. They don’t build trust — quite the opposite. And the same goes for any attempts to close down expressions of pro-life positions more generally. For the sake of women everywhere, not only the pregnant ones, we should do better.

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Elizabeth Oldfield is the former head of Theos. Her writing has appeared in the FT, Prospect and The Times. Her Twitter handle is @esoldfield

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