Agonism, Deliberation, and the Politics of Abortion

Deliberative democracy claims to provide a model for dialogue on difficult political disagreements such as the question of abortion. But this model functions only at the cost of misrepresenting the nature of the disagreement. Agonal democratic theory provides some insight as to why this is so, and a modified agonal approach is more accurate in describing the dynamics of such a contentious issue, and in providing grounds for continued dialogue. The Pro-choice and Pro-life Leaders’ Dialogue sponsored by the Public Conversations Project in Boston, Massachusetts, demonstrates the importance of this alternative conception of democratic interaction to preserve the complexity of an issue and to sustain authentic dialogue.