Uploaded September 2019 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
“If there isn’t the crack in the middle where there’s some people on both sides who absolutely refuse to see the other as evil, this is going to continue.”
The focus of our national fight over abortion may change, but this hasn’t changed for decades: We collapse this most intimate and complex of human dilemmas to two sides. We’ve been looking yet again for wisdom away from the turbulent news cycle and keep returning to this conversation Krista had with Frances Kissling. She is a “bridge person” in the abortion debate: a long-time pro-choice activist who has sought to come into relationship with her political opposites. She’s controversial on both sides but speaks from a place that many of us would like to map out between the poles. She has experienced something more powerful, as she tells it, than defining common ground — and this has lessons for other issues in our common life and our struggles with people with whom we disagree the most. (Original Air Date: January 20, 2011)
About the Guest:
Frances Kissling is president of the Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy. She was the president of Catholics for Choice from 1982 until 2007.
Visit our website to read the transcript, download the episode, or listen to the unedited interview: onbeing.org/programs/frances-kissling-what-is-good-in-the-position-of-the-other-sep2018
Visit our On Being Classics Library, where this episode is featured: onbeing.org/libraries/classics
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“If there isn’t the crack in the middle where there’s some people on both sides who absolutely refuse to see the other as evil, this is going to continue.”
The focus of our national fight over abortion may change, but this hasn’t changed for decades: We collapse this most intimate and complex of human dilemmas to two sides. We’ve been looking yet again for wisdom away from the turbulent news cycle and keep returning to this conversation Krista had with Frances Kissling. She is a “bridge person” in the abortion debate: a long-time pro-choice activist who has sought to come into relationship with her political opposites. She’s controversial on both sides but speaks from a place that many of us would like to map out between the poles. She has experienced something more powerful, as she tells it, than defining common ground — and this has lessons for other issues in our common life and our struggles with people with whom we disagree the most. (Original Air Date: January 20, 2011)
About the Guest:
Frances Kissling is president of the Center for Health, Ethics and Social Policy. She was the president of Catholics for Choice from 1982 until 2007.
Visit our website to read the transcript, download the episode, or listen to the unedited interview: onbeing.org/programs/frances-kissling-what-is-good-in-the-position-of-the-other-sep2018
Visit our On Being Classics Library, where this episode is featured: onbeing.org/libraries/classics
STAY IN TOUCH
Facebook: facebook.com/onbeing
Twitter: twitter.com/onbeing
Instagram: instagram.com/onbeing
Newsletter: onbeing.org/newsletter
OUR PODCASTS
On Being with Krista Tippett: onbeing.org/series/podcast
This Movie Changed Me: onbeing.org/series/this-movie-changed-me
Becoming Wise: onbeing.org/series/becoming-wise
