Following the national conventions, the question has been raised anew whether there is any common ground to be found on the ever divisive topic of abortion. How we pursue agreement may make all the difference.

Recent events suggest that contesting what modern genetics cannot deny --- namely, that life begins at conception --- is a non-starter, but closer attention to those arguing for improvement in the social and economic circumstances of families, especially families with little or modest wealth, may pay a handsome dividend in the strengthening of a culture of life.

Of course, no Catholic should try to find common ground on unstable terrain. The teaching of the church is clear: Abortion is intrinsically wrong and no amount of linguistic parsing provides escape. The lack of maneuverability here is aptly illustrated by a recent public conversation between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the bishops over medievalist theology.

On a recent "Meet the Press" appearance, Pelosi noted that some Fathers of the Church differed on when life begins.

Not so, said Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia and Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., chairmen of the U.S. bishops' pro-life and doctrine committees, respectively.

While in church history several notable theologians disagreed over when ensoulment occurred, when life begins and ensoulment are different, procured abortion has never been acceptable to the Catholic Church.

The bishops' correction was fairly given. What was most unfortunate was some conservative partisans and media taking unnecessary glee in the correction --- feeding yet again what divides us rather than that which brings us together.

More helpful was the circulation of new compilations of data illustrating often overlooked facts about the incidence of abortion. Hugh Skees of Miamisburg, Ohio, has culled from the public records of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that from 1979 to 1990 the annual rate of abortion increased by 14.2 percent.

"If the rate had not increased during those 11 years, approximately 740,000 abortions would have been prevented," Skees said. "From 1990 to 2000, the annual rate decreased by 34 percent. If the rate had not decreased as it did, approximately 2.3 million more children would have been aborted, but instead are alive today."

What was so favorable in the 1990s that abortion rates dropped? Skees speculates that it was the relatively prosperous economic times and policies that favored the average family.

Skees may be on to something.

Catholics in the Alliance for the Common Good, under director Alexia Kelley, produced an even finer grain study finding that the abortion rate among women living below the poverty level is more than four times that of women above 300 percent of the poverty level.

This study of all U.S. states from 1982 to 2000 finds that social and economic supports such as public assistance to low-income families and other maternity and prenatal benefits have contributed significantly to reducing the number of abortions in the United States over the past 20 years.

At a minimum the findings suggest that while the Supreme Court may have blocked one means of dealing with the scourge of abortion --- that of legal prohibition --- there is no reason why we can't make an effort to reduce its prevalence.

Perhaps the sign of common ground is agreeing that there is, in fact, more than one way to be pro-life. As Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement so well taught, one need not wait for an institution to do good, since we ourselves can start today.

The thousands of Catholic volunteers in crisis pregnancy centers know this full well.

Douglas W. Kmiec is chair and professor of constitutional law at Pepperdine University, Malibu, and the former Dean and St. Thomas More professor of law, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.