Torie: really, do me a favor: don't project, especially if you're doing so just to make me into your strawman.
I have personally struggled with the abortion issue throughout my life and have moved along that very continuum your friend described. I know it exists, and I know that "people of goodwill" might even find themselves gravitating toward the right end of it.
But any serious consideration of the history of the 20th century would have to indicate that incrementalism, Gramscianism, and the various other tactics of the Left have rarely been co-opted with any success by the Right. It's hard to do good works with black magic, I guess.
Still, because I am an idealist, I hold out hope. I live in New York, and I consider anyone who even has an open mind about the issue to be a potentially. ally