In an ideal world, pro-choice and pro-life politicians could get together and develop public policy that sharply reduces the amount of abortions that occur in this country, and do it without curtailing the right or availability of abortion. But we don’t live in an ideal world. The pro-life movement is more properly termed the anti-choice movement, since that is their preferred method for reducing abortions. Democrats need to keep that fact in mind.

Sensing an opportunity to impress religious voters — and tip elections — Democrats in Congress and on the campaign trail have begun to adopt some of the language and policy goals of the antiabortion movement.

For years, the liberal response to abortion has been to promote more accessible and affordable birth control as well as detailed sex education in public schools.

That’s still the foundation of Democratic policies. But in a striking shift, Democrats in the House last week promoted a grab bag of programs designed not only to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but also to encourage women who do conceive to carry to term.

It’s always a bad idea to adopt the language of the anti-choice movement. But, like I said, there are a few areas of common ground on goals. So, what’s in the bill?

The Reducing the Need for Abortions Initiative provides millions in new funds to:

• Counsel more young women in crisis to consider adoption, not abortion.

• Launch an ad campaign to inform needy women that they can receive healthcare and other resources if they are “preparing for birth.”

• Expand parenting education and medical services for pregnant women, in some cases by sending nurses to their homes.

• Offer day care at federal job-training centers to help new mothers become self-sufficient.

This list is pretty vague. Insofar as it offers healthcare to women ‘preparing for birth’ and nurses that can be sent ‘to their homes’, it is a poor substitute for a national health care program. I’d also like to know what kind of national day care program they are envisioning. And I have concerns about counseling women to consider adoption. They should make sure there is literature and counseling available about how adoption works, but it shouldn’t be forced on women who don’t want it.

Oh, but here I am taking the Republicans seriously and thinking about how the desire to reduce the number of abortions is a great motivator for a national health care system. Silly me.

But conservatives also accuse Democrats of using abortion rhetoric to sell the right on traditional liberal priorities, such as healthcare funding. Democrats have rejected other ideas that conservatives consider highly effective in reducing abortions, such as requiring women to view ultrasound images of the womb.

Imagine that? Republicans criticizing us for taking a woman and her baby’s health seriously.

The debate doesn’t seem to be advancing.

From the left, too, the new strategy has drawn barbs. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) urges her party to stick to promoting contraception, instead of trying to sway women’s choices after they conceive.

“I don’t believe any woman decides between having an abortion or not on the basis of ‘Is there day care available?’ ” Slaughter said. “Our aim here is to let women know we can help them not get pregnant.”

I disagree that women don’t consider the availability of day care when the make their choice. They consider, on the whole, whether they are prepared and equipped to care for the baby…during the night or the day. My argument against the day care provisions of this bill would be based on the vehicle for providing it, not the merits of providing it. If you want a higher percentage of pregnancies carried to term you should craft social policy to make it more affordable and more manageable to be a mother. And that means that you are going to have to spend money on social programs.

From my perspective, the Democrats are playing with fire and crafting lousy legislation. Consider this:

A separate measure, still pending, calls for funding maternity and day-care centers on college campuses so pregnant students won’t feel they must have an abortion to stay in school.

Again, are we really going to ignore poor people and provide special programs for college students? We need a comprehensive plan that covers everybody. And listen to this:

From a political perspective, Democratic strategists warn that emphasizing birth control gives voters a bad impression — “that Democrats are just about free love, not morality,” said Rachel Laser, an analyst for the progressive think tank Third Way.

Except:

Roughly half of all women who seek abortion said they were using some form of birth control, albeit inconsistently, the month they conceived.

Rather than going around saying how ‘icky’ abortion is, we should be going around saying that ‘roughly half of all women who seek abortion said they were using some form of birth control, albeit inconsistently, the month they conceived.’ That has the dual advantage of taking the judgmental sting out of an unwanted pregnancy and of educating women (and men) about the unreliability of birth control so they can make better decisions.

The bottom line is that everyone should have access to health care, including contraceptives. Social policy can be pro-natal without being anti-choice, but no society can be pro-natal if it denies health care to 45 million people. And the Republican Party is made up of two core constituencies that are extremely unlikely to come to any consensus with us on sensible policy. The anti-government program people don’t want to expand services that make motherhood more manageable and the anti-choice people don’t accept a woman’s right to choose, irrespective of whatever policies we might adopt.

The Democrats seem to be playing into the hands of bad people that have bad intentions for women’s health and women’s liberties.