Disarming the Enemy : Few issues are more incendiary than abortion. So, is gathering the opposing camps for discussion a risky undertaking? Not necessarily.

After the St. Louis Common Ground Assn. sat down six years ago in a highly publicized effort to bring together abortion adversaries, others across the country have tried to follow suit.

In Milwaukee, a group of eight people met for 13 months and then adjourned.

A group in San Francisco met once for a spiritual retreat.

In Buffalo, N.Y., the Coalition for Common Ground met for two years, and then members decided to talk about housing for the disabled and ordination of homosexual clergy instead. “The last time we tried to hold a workshop on abortion, not enough people registered to hold it,” said one of the founders, Karen Swallow Prior. “The abortion issue is something people don’t want to think about now for a while.”

Yet, this year, as the battle over abortion has reignited in Congress, more Common Ground groups have sprung up--in Philadelphia; Norfolk, Va.; St. Paul, Minn.; and Davenport, Iowa. In a movement characterized by fits and starts, at least 20 groups across the nation are now trying to help abortion adversaries focus on their shared concerns without giving up their conflicting moral principles, said Mary Jacksteit, co-director of the Common Ground Network for Life and Choice in Washington, D.C. They’re planning their first national gathering in the spring.

Like the pioneers, group members aim to find overlapping concerns in confidential, nonthreatening environments. But unlike them, many have found it necessary to use mediators to keep talks from breaking down.

Laura Chasin, a Cambridge, Mass., therapist who has organized adversaries in highly structured groups, said that even today “given the prevailing cultural habits of talking about this issue, it’s a very radical act.”

In the political forum, the debate shows no signs of being transformed into one of mutual respect for agreed-upon goals. This fall, both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted to criminalize a rare, late-term abortion procedure. If adopted, it would become the first time Congress banned an abortion procedure since Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling upholding a woman’s right to abortion.

While President Clinton is expected to veto the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Act, he signed a defense appropriations bill that included a provision forbidding servicewomen, military wives and daughters from having some abortions at military hospitals overseas, and another measure denying federal employees abortion coverage in their insurance plans. And one effort to abolish funding for the nation’s entire family planning program was narrowly defeated.

But meanwhile, among the homemakers, teachers, clergy and others seeking a more moderate path, many are tired of the chronic nastiness of the public debate, or alarmed at the wave of violence directed at abortion clinic workers. Others cannot deny the worth of their opponents’ principles.

For Common Ground groups to work, participants must first loosen up their stereotypical images of one another, said Jacksteit. “They do not have to be open to changing their mind on abortion. They do have to be open to changing their view of the people who disagree with them on the issue.”

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When the first abortion doctor was killed in Pensacola, Fla., in March, 1993, Brenda Pollak, like almost everyone in town, was sickened and shocked. Something should be done, she thought. But time passed. Life went on. Then, a year later, another doctor and his escort were shot to death. This time, she told herself, “No, no, no. I’ve got to do something. It is not OK to do nothing.”

Pollak, a professional trainer, became the facilitator for a new Common Ground group.

Using the national group’s guidelines, participants pledged confidentiality and promised to refrain from asking their opponents to compromise their moral principles.

Following the example of the St. Louis group, many groups don’t discuss the central moral issues about abortion because they are already so familiar with one another’s positions and know it would be fruitless. They also deliberately limit the groups to equal numbers of adversaries. Leaders say dropping the use of loaded labels such as “abortion advocates” or “anti-choice,” not to mention “woman hater” and “baby killer,” is also crucial to building trust among participants.

Pollak said her group began with a personal question, unrelated to abortion, such as “Who is a hero or heroine to you?” “People begin to know each other as human beings, and find they have the same fears, anxieties, angers and joys. It’s harder to hate somebody who’s a lot like you, rather than a nameless, faceless person,” she said.

Later, participants separated into pairs, answering specific questions about abortion. When one finished, the other would have to repeat what he or she heard to the speaker’s satisfaction.

Pollak was surprised at what she found. “To the last person, every one of the people on both sides of the issue say they wish there were fewer abortions,” she said.

She also said she learned that differences among adversaries “are much less than people think they are, and the similarities are much greater than what people know. There are not just two sides of this issue. There are many degrees of pro-choice, and many degrees of pro-life. It’s like a continuum. Those that are close to the center are closer to the center on the other side than the extremists on their own side.”

She said her group has yet to agree on any common projects, but another group in Pensacola produced a pamphlet of local services for women that included those at abortion clinics and crisis pregnancy centers. They were distributed in both places, she said. “It’s a pretty remarkable feat.”

In some groups, the delight that comes with seeing one’s former enemy as an equal human being is so great that some participants would rather just continue getting to know one another than move on to some sort of joint project. In Cambridge, Chasin said this is one of their biggest disagreements.

While Common Ground groups tend not to attract or retain extremists, passions still run high. Jacksteit said she met with a group right after the shooting deaths of two receptionists in Brookline, Mass., health clinics a year ago. “It was very important for them to be together where the pro-choice people could vent their anger and the pro-life people could see and feel and acknowledge the intensity of that,” she said.

While the abortion-rights activists wanted the abortion foes to tone down their rhetoric, Jacksteit said they also had to acknowledge the intensity of feeling for people who fully believe abortion is murder. ‘Then the challenge becomes, how do you have people feel very strongly about abortion, but not go to violent means to pursue that? It moves people into a more realistic conversation,” she said.

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Lawyer Andrew Puzder helped draft an anti-abortion law in Missouri that proclaimed life begins at conception. When it was upheld in the landmark 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, it gave states additional authority to restrict abortions.

Puzder, co-founder of the pioneering St. Louis Common Ground group, says he still will do whatever he can to make abortion illegal. But that doesn’t mean he can’t have compassion for women and children who suffer because of their circumstances.

He explained, “You can’t ignore the fact that unborn children have some value if you’re pro-choice, or the fact that women do suffer, if you’re pro-life. You have to find a way to deal with that pain and suffering while advancing your principles.”

An abortion-rights advocate member of the original St. Louis group, Jean Cavender, said she still belongs to the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. But that doesn’t mean she can’t respect Puzder’s belief that all life begins at conception.

Puzder has since relocated to Newport Beach and said he is willing to help start the first group in Southern California, but has yet to become acquainted with local abortion rights leaders.

Another member of the original group, B.J. Isaacson-Jones, former president of Reproductive Health Services, an abortion provider in St. Louis, has moved to Indiana. The fourth member, Loretto Wagner, an anti-abortion activist, remains in St. Louis.