From The Seattle Times
By Ellen Goodman

It must be the world’s longest-running game of ideological pingpong. In 1984, Ronald Reagan aimed an overhand smash at international organizations, pledging that America would no longer give family-planning money to any group that even counseled or referred women for abortions. Ping.

In 1993, Bill Clinton revoked this Global Gag Rule two days after he took office. Pong.

In 2001, George W. Bush signed the gag order back in place as his first order of business. Ping.

Then, in 2009, Barack Obama rescinded the order again. Pong, anyone?

Obama’s act was greeted with the familiar cheers and jeers of old rhetorical enemies, but I heard a different voice. In the quiet statement that accompanied his move, the new man in the White House described abortion as “a political wedge issue, the subject of a back-and-forth debate that has served only to divide us. I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate.”

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