Could you sit in a room with 14 strangers from various backgrounds with divergent belief systems and come to a consensus on a topic as contentious as abortion?
Starts With Us Builders is a nonprofit whose mission is to try to overcome toxic polarization and show that people on opposite sides of controversial issues can come to a mutual understanding. The organization is currently running a pilot program, called Citizen Solutions, that’s prioritizes problem solving over partisanship and solutions over stalemates by recruiting citizens to come together, discuss a topic and develop agreed upon policy solutions that then are open to public feedback within the state.
The first civic experiment took place in Tennessee and discussed the topic of guns. The second took place in Wisconsin on the topic of abortion.
In December 2023, Starts With Us Builders invited 14 residents with divergent abortion beliefs to a three day Solution Session where they engaged in heated discussion but ultimately agreed on five proposed consensus solutions which are designed to address the economic, health, and education disparities that can lead people to choose abortion. The group ultimately could not come to any consensus about abortion itself.
Spanning the State’s Kristin Brey and Brian Noonan sat down with Ashley Phillips, Head of Programs at Starts With Us Builders and two of the program’s participants, Ali Muldrow, executive director at Women’s Medical Fund Wisconsin and Bria Halama, a Catholic clinical mental health counselor. You can hear the full conversation by playing the podcast in this link.
If you would like to review and submit your feedback on the 5 policy proposals you can find those here: https://citizensolutions.us/citizensolutions/wi
