Lack of civility stifles serious debate about abortion.

To quote Samuel Johnson, “When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.”

The abortion debate is one in which the forms of civility have been violated repeatedly by the most vocal activists on both sides — whose voices tend to be the only ones we hear.

“Ever since the anti-abortion movement claimed the ‘pro-life’ label in the 1970s,” write Barbara Ehrenreich and Alissa Quart in a recent Guardian opinion column, “the battle over reproductive rights has taken an apocalyptic tone.” Yes. “If the anti-abortion side is pro-life,” they continue, “then the other side — the millions of women who rally every January to keep abortion legal and safe — must be composed of the gaunt, grey-winged handmaidens of death.”

Unfortunately, the magnificent hyperbole isn’t a huge stretch.

So, I’m nodding by the time I read the columnists’ introductory conclusion: “This polarizing rhetoric turns every clash between the two sides into a prelude to Armageddon, the final showdown between life and death, good and evil.”

“Yes!” I think to myself. “Everyone needs to drop the polarizing rhetoric. I like what they’re saying.”

It turns out this isn’t what Ehrenreich and Quart are saying at all.

In fairness, their actual point is telegraphed by the headline on their piece: “Let’s call the pro-lifers what they are: pro-death.” Which is polarizing rhetoric.

But writers rarely choose their own headlines, so I thought the body of their article would lead somewhere else.

It doesn’t. Ehrenreich and Quart aren’t urging that everyone drop the divisive language. They’re urging that their side (the prochoice side) start using the divisive language more to prove their point.

“Let’s take back the mantel of life,” they write. Eventually they conclude that “surely the time has come to raise the charge that the ‘pro-life’ movement is, in effect, pro-death.”

So, my apologies, Guardian headline writer; you were actually spot-on.

All this really boils down to a schoolyard screaming match, where one side yells, “No, we’re not pro-death. You’re pro-death.” To which the other side replies, “No, we’re not pro-death. You’re pro-death.”

It’s a dispute that could — and probably will — go on forever.

I don’t mean to imply that Ehrenreich and Quart fail to back up their point. They share troubling data about increases in maternal mortality rates in the United States, which they say are most acute in states that are most restrictive about abortions.

Are the writers correct in suggesting a causal link between difficulty accessing abortion and maternal mortality? I don’t know. It’s certainly a point worthy of open investigation and debate. The trouble is, it’s hard to embark on open investigation and debate when everyone’s ears are still ringing from melodramatic epithets. Saying, “You’re pro-death!” is not going to turn a pro-life person pro-choice, or vice versa. Nor will it help either person understand the other better.

What it will do is reinforce the notion that abortion policy is too explosive and controversial a topic to talk about at all, leading politicians to reflexively adopt an extreme policy (one way or the other) that seems already to have been decided upon — even though there’s probably a concerned silent majority that sits firmly in the middle of the spectrum of answers to the complex question.

Consider the absurd circus going on in Canada right now about organizations’ federal summer jobs funding being contingent on the groups affirming Charter values, including reproductive rights.

I’m very skeptical this is constitutional, but the relevant point for the current discussion is that the federal government has tried to defend itself by insisting that this requirement “is not about beliefs or values,” as federal Liberal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu put it.

Of course it’s about belief and values! And considerations of abortion should be about belief and values. But as a country we’ve done everything we possibly can, politically speaking, to ensure that we never have to talk about or engage with the beliefs and values that are at stake in the abortion debate.

The concept of “civility” can be used to silence minority and/or dissenting opinions, as John Stuart Mill warned us.

Who gets to decide what’s civil, and why are we sure that person’s view of civility is correct? It’s dangerous to insist on civility in a contentious debate.

But I truly believe that it’s the lack of civility in abortion discussion and activism that has led to the current unproductive choices of pointless name-calling or avoidance of acknowledging the nuances of the abortion question — to the point of ridiculously avoiding the point that there’s any question at all.

Neither side of the abortion debate is “pro-death,” and in their hearts, both sides know it. Now, they must find the grace and decency to say so out loud.