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Alsadius comments on Politics Discussion Thread January 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Even if we're talking about axiomatic disagreements, rational debate is still useful. Eg, we can still use rationality to help identify which axioms we're disagreeing with.
Case in point is your abortion example. I think you've messed up your lines of cause and effect there. Being anti-abortion either causes or has a common cause with believing that life begins at conception. Being pro-abortion causes or has a common cause with believing that life doesn't begin at conception.
Let me posit an axiom that causes anti-abortion. Instead of the whole 'soul' thing, lets go with "Women deserve to be punished for having sex," and that 'life-begins-at-conception' is just a rationalization. If this were true, anti-abortion should coincide with religiosity (it does) and pro-abortion should coincide with women's rights (also does). Both axioms correctly fit the existing data. How could we tell the difference... which axiom is the true axiom?
My rationalist shoes say we'd want to identify a differentiation point where these two axioms would cause different results. Have there been any occasions where "reduce number of abortions" and "punish women for having sex" come into conflict? Here's one. Turns out free access to birth control slashes the abortion rate. Less punishing women, less abortions. Cool, we've identified a point of differentiation.
Okay, so what did most of the 'pro-life' side go with? Shit, turns out they went with punishing women instead of fewer abortions and again and again and again. Well, that's not cool. For fairness' and balance's sake, I'll say that the pro-choice is probably less about integrity of body and more about wanting to fuck without consequence.
As you note, we've still got an axiomatic disagreement. In order to change the opposing side's mind we still need to shift their axiom. However, rationality has let the pro-abortion side aim their rhetorical firepower at the correct target. Instead of talking about the neural activity of fetuses, they can start making people feel more comfortable and accepting of sex. Once they're correctly targeting the true axiom, they'll have a lot more luck in shifting the opposing side's position.
Many religious objections to birth control consist of "It's actually abortion, just a bit more subtle" - preventing implantation of a fertilized embryo is the same as a surgical abortion, if you don't distinguish between a day's gestation and two months'. Most of the rest seem like generalized objections to sex - human biology being what it is, the punishment for that will inevitably fall largely on the shoulders of women. It doesn't seem like it's just a female-specific objection, though - I doubt your average religious objector would get too worked up at the thought of alimony or a shotgun marriage, and most seem to actively encourage adoption.
As for your proposed strategy, it seems like it's basically trying to do the same thing, given how liberalized sex and liberalized religion are so tightly bound in practice.
What about ways to prevent the ovum from being fertilized in the first place, e.g. condoms or vasectomy?
The objections there are mostly "It'll lead to evil nookie!", and to a lesser extent "It's not 100% reliable"(as though anything in life is...oh wait, abstinence can't lead to pregnancy, because the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down - how could I have forgotten?). They're stupid objections, but to people who literally believe that sex outside of marriage will lead to an eternity of torture, I can sort of see how they connect the dots.
If there are objections on the soul level, you should still expect to see a hierarchy based on preventing/allowing fertilization per birth control.
For example: Going by pure number of 'abortions' (counting as any termination of a fertilized ovum), there is a continuum for birth control. IIRC it's pill -> patch -> condoms -> spermicide+condoms -> shot -> implant -> IUD -> surgery. Implants and especially IUDs cause up to an order of magnitude fewer of these 'instant abortions' compared to the pill.
We should expect to see pro-life campaigns saying "get an IUD, NOT the pill!" (Or supporting vasectomy / tubal ligation, but fat chance on those.) But again, we don't see that. Because those 99.9% effective things will lead to sin.