‘I KNOW I’m on thin ice here,” said Vice President Al Gore at a meeting of the National Abortion Rights Action League in January 1997. “There is no way to discuss these issues without venturing out onto thin ice.” Gore was getting ready to reveal why pro-and anti-abortion activists could not suspend their political differences and “make common cause” on reducing unwanted pregnancies. After his first inauguration, explained the Vice President, “I reached out to individuals who are leaders on the [pro-life] side of this issue.” He refused to mention names “because the conversations were and shall remain private.”
But he was willing to discuss the substance of those conversations—apparently they were not that private. The pro-lifers were initially receptive to his overtures, said Gore, but they later balked. “Here’s my interpretation … a minority within the minority . . . believes that family planning in the form of birth control, and even the giving of information about birth control, is morally wrong,” he said in a not-too-subtle reference to Roman Catholic teachings. Then Gore added, “The way coalitions are built and maintained is that sometimes deference is inappropriately given to a mistaken view. … If [pro-lifers] were willing to abandon that aspect of their common front, then there would be much that we could all do together to make abortions rare.”
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