From The Baltimore Sun
By Cynthia Tucker

Lipstick. Pig. Palin. Pathetic.

OK, now that I have your attention, can we talk about something important?

I know it’s hard to focus on anything but the dumb dust-ups that emanate furiously from the campaign trail - especially since the 24-hour “news” channels insist on elevating every meaningless contretemps - but we ought to try to have a serious discussion, anyway.

As long as motherhood and family values and teen births are already part of the conversation, can’t we spend just a few minutes talking about family planning? If bipartisanship and cooperation are the new watchwords, can’t we discuss something most of us agree on - contraception? If change is really in the air, can’t we change our stubborn refusal to do the one thing that would further reduce the abortion rate?

Abortions have been declining for the past three decades. In 2005, the last year for which figures were available, the U.S. abortion rate dropped to 19.4 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44, the lowest rate since 1974, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that advocates family planning. The actual number also declined to a total of 1.2 million in 2005, 25 percent below the all-time high of 1.6 million abortions in 1990, according to the same Guttmacher survey.

Read more Pushing Contraception