The task of gaining public support for a pro-woman/pro-life platform is not difficult. The issue of coerced abortions, for example, is ripe for the picking.

In my experience, once this issue is raised, everyone -- even pro-abortionists -- admit that coercion is occurring. It is common knowledge that abortion often suits lovers and parents more than it suits the pregnant women themselves. It takes no leap of
imagination to understand how these persons often pressure, badger, and blackmail a woman into accepting an unwanted "safe and legal" abortion because it will be "best for everyone."

Even the prominent abortion defender Daniel Callahan writes, "That men have long coerced women into unwanted abortion when it suits their purposes is well-known but rarely mentioned. Data reported by the Alan Guttmacher Institute indicate that some 30 percent of women have an abortion because someone else, not the woman, wants it."

This is a powerful political issue. No one can rationally deny that coerced abortions occur, and no politician would dare to defend this practice. Only population control zealots defend forced abortions, but even they are generally reluctant to publicly express this issue.

Thus, a pro-life politician who emphasizes this issue will be establishing an area of common ground which will be shared by all people of good will. Pro-lifers will support such a defense of women's rights, and the vast majority of voters who describe
themselves as pro-choice would also agree that an effort to stop coerced abortions is reasonable and necessary.

While a campaign speech may not be the place to define the solution to this problem, the solution is straightforward.

Abortionists should be held legally responsible for ensuring that woman's choice to have an abortion is totally her own and that she is not being pressured into this decision by others. If abortion clinics fail to properly screen their patients, they should be held accountable as "accessories" to the crime of pressuring a woman into an unwanted abortion. If a woman can later show that an abortion counselor added to the pressures which made her feel she "had no choice," or did nothing to protect her from being pressured into an unwanted abortion, she should be entitled to sue the clinic for the wrongful of her wanted child -- which can entail millions of dollars in compensation.

Emphasizing the issue of coerced abortions allows pro-life candidates and supporters to reframe the abortion debate in a way which puts women and children together on the same side, and can even draw the support of those who normally consider themselves "pro-choice."

This shifts the balance of the debate to our advantage. When faced with clearly pro-woman initiatives, pro-abortion politicians will be forced to either accede to our reforms (which will doom the abortion industry), or to side with the abortion industry against women's rights (which will doom pro-abortion politicians). Either way, we win.