Do defenders of the unborn have cause to fear, as the mainstream media would have them believe, that the abortion debate is all-but over and the only choice is to fold one’s arms and accept widespread abortion legalization as inevitable?
Contrary to the prevailing talking point from the Left, the abortion debate is far from over and settled. While recent setbacks such as the passage of pro-abortion ballot initiatives at the state level appear to spell bad news for the life movement, political trends suggest there is cause for hope in the long term.
What must be understood is that the abortion debate in the United States is largely one of differing views on morality, an expression of the electorate’s values. While the abortion lobby likes to play up the prevalence of abortion, statistics over the last several years put the rate of abortion among women, at most, at approximately 11 percent.
Furthermore, the practice has been getting less common over the last several decades. And most abortions take place among poor communities of racial minorities, with black women accounting for four to five times the number of abortions as white women.
What this means, at the political level, is that for most voters, abortion is an issue that they grapple with on an intellectual, moral, and emotional level, but not on a personal level. Whereas certain issues, such as the economy, directly affect the lives of all voters, the political fate of abortion is more a measure of where public morality lies at any given moment.
In other words, the public view of abortion is directly tied to how closely the electorate identifies with traditional Biblical morality. Perceptions of abortion can and do change in response to abortion-specific advocacy, but they also largely shift depending on voters’ overall worldview.
If Americans overwhelmingly have a Bible-based ethical foundation, they will by natural consequence be opposed to abortion. But if they succumb to atheistic relativism and cultural Marxism, then they will inevitably develop a favorable view of abortion.
In politics, dealing with issue debates regularly can cause observers to overestimate the degree to which average voters — those who aren’t involved in politics for a living and who only follow it with passing interest as they go about dealing with greater priorities in their personal lives — are fixated on individual issues.
Average Americans’ views on the issues tend to be malleable and fluctuating — not separate and independent, but interconnected to and dependent upon a more complex amalgam of value systems, interests, and priorities.
In this vein, while the Left has been quick to declare victory in the abortion debate in recent months, the reality is that overarching trends show a public pulling away from the extremes of cultural Marxism.
This can be observed on the political level, with conservative areas being increasingly bold enough to push legislation cracking down on transgenderism and LGBT propaganda. The fact that today’s conservatives are more than willing to call out LGBT grooming and overreach, whereas only a few years ago it was seen as socially catastrophic to be intolerant of homosexuals, signifies that a major cultural shift toward the right is gradually taking place.
And far from such news being the mere death throes of older generations, several mainstream outlets have found themselves forced to admit that Gen Z is growing in religious faith.
As The Daily Mail reports:
Springtide Research Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit, found that … about one-third of 18-to-25-year-olds say they believe — more than doubt — the existence of a ‘higher power,’ up from about one-quarter in 2021, according to a survey from December.
Researchers also found that religion and spirituality helps young adults, who have had their lives upended by the Covid-19 pandemic, which increased rates of isolation, insecurity and mental health problems.
More than half of those surveyed said spiritual or religious practices improved their mental health.
Gen Z adults who described themselves as ‘very religious’ also appear to be faring better than their non-religious counterparts.
Young people have always sought meaning and purpose in their lives, as well as a sense of belonging and the opportunity to do good in the name of a higher power. The Left successfully tapped into these traits with the ‘60s and ‘70s counterculture to lead an entire generation of youth away from traditional Biblical culture.
The irony is that, while this was labeled the “counter culture,” this subversion was in reality propped up by the powerful and wealthy — after all, it was the mainstream record companies, radio stations, television networks, book publishing companies, movie studios, and universities that gave a platform to all of the leftist cultural rot.
Now, however, the internet has upended the monopoly the establishment once had on the means of communication, allowing for true divergent opinions to flourish. This has made it possible for traditional, Biblically-based ideas to reach young people once more.
Over time, these seeds will sprout and influence the rising generation to return to moral decision-making on not only abortion, but a wide range of other issues.
