Congress and many state legislatures, including Connecticut, opened their new sessions last week. Lawmakers will be starting fresh for the first time since the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case, ruling that states have the right to legislate access to abortion.

Whatever measures the newly sworn lawmakers will take won’t be the first, of course. Some states swiftly passed new laws that penalize women for having or seeking abortions and health care professionals for providing them. Others, Connecticut among them, identified themselves as sanctuary states for out-of-state women and reiterated laws that have been in place for years.

For 50 years before the Dobbs decision, states had to make abortion law and policy within the framework of Roe v. Wade, under which the court held that women had a constitutional right to make their own health care decisions, including the right to choose an abortion. In other words, as Americans, women would have the same rights as non-women to manage their health care. Another way of saying that states have been freed from considering constitutional protections for abortion access is that the ruling means 21st-century American women have not achieved full equality under the constitution. Regardless, for those who focus on the fact that every abortion ends a life, stopping abortions is the goal.

These are grave matters. The ending of Roe portends major political battles in the new Congress and state legislatures but there is one thing it does not change: Two sides are pitted against each other, one fiercely defending women’s rights and the other committed to the right to a life for unborn children. The divide only deepens with the potential for 50 different sets of laws.

The court’s ruling and all subsequent state legislation have done nothing to move the country forward in this painful dilemma. It remains a situation of An Us v. A Them, of winners and losers.

What the nation really needs are laws and policies that save and sustain the most lives. That is the underlying premise when we plan how to handle a pandemic, a natural disaster or defense of the homeland. Woefully imperfect as our gun control measures are, the same principle underlies our efforts to prevent massacres. Most Americans would probably support measures that apply such a standard in abortion access, given that surveys have long shown a majority are mindful that not all pregnancies present equal risks.

For good lawmaking, the abortion question needs to be re-framed because, as my eldest granddaughter described it recently, “we (the two sides) are not having the same conversation.” A senior at the University of Notre Dame, she and others in her age group are not about to surrender to the idea that women have fewer rights than men. They are distressed by the failure to address the real, complex problem rather than picking sides.

This, then, is their moment to insist on a better answer to the abortion question by re-framing it on a basis that most Americans can live with: Medically, legally, behaviorally, and in terms of support for pregnant women, what is the best we can do to serve women, children, their families and communities? We are not doing whatever that combination is right now.

I hope that women of child-bearing age, joined by older ones with the wisdom of experience, will unite across the ideological and political divide that blocks our society from life-saving and life-supporting solutions. Some women would still choose abortion in spite of improved alternatives, but good policy, law and medicine would reduce the number of times women even face that decision. Those whose ultimate goal is to prevent fetal deaths would be able to know they had indeed saved lives.

Nothing is perfect in politics and government, but the situation could be far better than it is. Elected officials who perhaps hoped never to have to take up this emotionally charged issue have little choice now. They might welcome the sight of another women’s march – this time, rather than demonizing those who disagree, uniting people on both sides in a search for truly humane, constitutional answers to the abortion question.

Lisa McGinley is a member of The Day Editorial Board.