Why Americans are becoming more pro-life

Washington Post: Why Americans are becoming more pro-life

... The polling shows that rather than embracing abortion with increasing gusto, Americans--especially young Americans--are rejecting it with increasing disgust, and not just for religious reasons.

Why?

First, the fetus has been humanized. Modern science has helped us to understand with intricate detail the amazing phenomenon that occurs at the moment of fertilization. From then on, a pregnant woman can track the extraordinary chain of events that is triggered in the new life within her with a slew of Web sites and iPhone apps. She learns her baby’s heart starts beating at a mere 21 days after conception (before many women learn they are pregnant). She meets her baby on the ultrasound screen at eight weeks as opposed to at the end of nine months.

Second, we have seen the way abortion is used in the world to undermine the rights of women, whether it is forced abortion in China, gender-selective abortion worldwide or its concentration among poor and minority women. Abortion is increasingly hard to square with women’s empowerment when it is the single greatest contributor tipping the scale towards a world with fewer women.

Finally, the pro-life movement has caught on to the importance of framing. You can’t win a debate if you are trying to take away the “rights” of a group. And that is a good thing – this is a nation where rights mean something. Which is why pro-lifers are increasingly framing abortion as a civil rights issue. It is a civil rights issue. At stake is the most elemental right we have as a human being, the right to be alive, the right not to be killed, regardless of one’s race, gender, or “viability.”

Many past civil rights movements in this country, such as the move to end slavery or the fight for women’s suffrage, were deeply rooted in religious conviction. Such is the case with the pro-life movement. But with each of these movements there was a tipping point where Americans saw that one need not be a devoutly religious person to recognize the social justice issue at stake and to get behind the cause. This is happening with abortion in America. ...

Source: Gallup

We need a few more years of data to see if anything has really changed. 50 to 41  pro-life is not out of line with where things have been for the past decade.

Comments

[Marie Bowen]

Thanks for this post, Michael. You have captured many of the causes for a cultural shift toward an increasingly pro-life view of abortion. I would add that many Americans under 40 have experienced the loss of siblings who were aborted. They have seen the effect of that abortion experience on their moms and dads too and have observed the regret and guilt that results from abortion.

I've been reading the social witness policy of the Presbyterian Church (USA)this week. It is 20 years old now. Usually I am focused on how it is out of touch with Biblical teaching on the value of life, but this time I was struck by how outdated it is medically, scientifically, and how out of touch with current cultural thinking on abortion.

I am grateful that for your insightful and clear writing on this topic.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Marie, just to be clear, the text above the graph is an excerpt from the linked article. I think the author is on to something but I wonder how much is based on research and speculation. I have read of research elsewhere that corroborates how the changes in technology have had an impact. Not sure about the rest.

Either way, like I said at the end, end I think it is to early to say a tide has changed in a particular direction.