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A strange thing happens when you can actually see what is going on inside the womb. Whereas before technology had made it so that women could be tricked into thinking that what was growing inside her was simply a blob of tissue, young ladies that are growing into the next generation have grown up during a time of 3D and 4D ultrasounds and the debate over partial birth abortion.
What this has done is created a group of individuals that more readily align themselves with he pro-life argument than the pro-choice one. A recent survey reported by CNSNews said the following:
Results in 1992 were largely in step with what study authors Christopher Blunt and Fred Steeper call the “self-interest hypothesis.” Women and men under 30 were the most ardently “pro-choice” (39%) and the least likely to be strongly “pro-life” (23%).
Today, by contrast, among the current generation of 18- to 29-year-olds, 36% say they are strongly “pro-life,” while just 18% say they are strongly “pro-choice,” the study authors said.
The trend was particularly evident among women in that age bracket. 40% identify themselves as strongly “pro-life” and only 20% as strongly “pro-choice.”
The data reverses a two-to-one ratio that was evident in 1992, the study noted.
— snip —
“As grisly details of partial birth abortion procedures replaced confrontational and often violent clinic protests on the evening news, voters seemed to have changed their minds about who the ‘abortion extremists’ were,” they wrote in their analysis. (emphasis mine)
I especially like the line that I highlighted above. Voters are now choosing to align themselves with the pro-life cause because they believe the pro-choicers are the extremists and not the other way around.
What contributed to this? A lot of factors. I think the technology is a big one. I believe that the logic of the pro-life argument is better. Corruption is another. And I think that we may also be in the midst of a change in mind set on the pendulum as far as feminism and morality. What do you think?
Hat Tip Jill Stanek
James Tarranto, the editor of opinionjournal.com and author of BestOfTheWebToday blog, has a theory on this that I tend to subscribe to as a contibuting factor in this societal change.
He calls his theory “The Roe Effect” and it goes like this:
Children have a reasonably high likelyhood of sharing the moral and political views of their parents when they reach adulthood.
That being said, pro-abortion parents are much more likely to abort their children to the tune of several million since Roe v Wade, while pro-life parents have aborted almost none of their children during the same period.
The children born since Roe v Wade became law have recently begun reaching the age of adulthood. As time passes and the number of probable pro-abortion children aren’t born because they were aborted grows, the pendulum swings further.
I think the facts you mentioned in your article contribute as well. We also can’t discount the peer presure apsect either. If a young person has fewer radical pro-abortion peers they are more likely to feel more comfortable expressing a more moderate to pro-life position.
I’m glad my parents were pro-life 🙂
Just my take on it. – Tracker
Great take on it Tracker! I guess big families of the quiverfull mindset may swing the pendulum even further, even faster!
MIn, as far as the question of feminism and morality goes, if you’re right, and I hope you are, then it makes each individual’s potential for influencing change that much more crucial.
Like Tracker said, the more the culture around people seems to change the more the peer pressure will change. People don’t like being in the minority. They don’t like being wrong. So, I think it’s possible to change if people are not afraid to stand on conviction.
There are a lot of myths about the pro-life movement: that we are extremists, that we are unconcerned about the well-being of women… it takes lots of good hard work to get over them, but I believe it will be done in the end!
Right on, Anna. I’m certain that we will look back one day and see that it was really the pro-choice people that are like the pro-slavery people of old. And that will be sad, but the day is coming.