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“The New Normal,” a Pro-life America

“The New Normal,” a Pro-life America

by Rebecca Burgoyne, CFC Research Analyst
May 21, 2010

A generation ago, excited parents waited for their new little bundle of joy to enter the world before they knew if it were a boy or a girl. Often, with two names picked out, they named the new family member in the delivery room, as they cooed, and counted fingers and toes. Today’s parents still ooh and ah, and count fingers and toes, but often – knowing the gender already – they have already prayed for their child by name. The luxury of ultrasound technology gives today’s parents a window into the womb, and seeing this tiny life being “knit together” in the safety of the mother’s womb adds a dimension lost to previous generations. 
 
Views into life in the womb not only have added names and faces to the preborn, but the reality has aided the growth of the pro-life movement immensely. Most women, glimpsing their unborn child for the first time, become pro-life, and a strong majority of women who view their babies with ultrasound technology will choose to carry them to term. 

Perhaps partly for this reason, a pro-life trend has become evident in American culture over the past few years. Policy debate and familiarity with the pain abortion can bring have helped move Americans in a pro-life direction. And today, after decades of being saddled with the pro-choice label, America can legitimately claim to be a pro-life nation. 

Finding that a majority of Americans self-identified as “pro-life” – as opposed to “pro-choice” – for the third straight time, Gallup Polls has proclaimed it “the new normal” on abortion. Slightly more respondents – 47 percent to 45 percent – claimed the pro-life label in a survey earlier this month. That is nearly identical to last July’s 47 percent to 46 percent split, and down from the 51 percent to 42 percent showing a year ago. The steady trend has led the Gallup organization to identify the cultural shift as “a real change in public opinion.”

In 1973, when the United States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade determined a constitutional “right” to choose on the question of abortion, this technological window into the womb was dark and – convinced their child was a “blob of tissue” – many Americans abandoned innate views about life’s preciousness written on their consciences. By 1995, the Gallup organization found the nation supported abortion 56 percent to 33 percent.

In recent years, however, sentiment is changing and abortion numbers are declining. Even Gallup has noted a cultural shift on abortion since 2005. The pro-life movement is succeeding, helped by mainstream policy debates, advancing technology, and familiarity with the personal pain of abortion. With young adults becoming increasingly pro-life, the future of life – and the “new normal” in America is hopeful. 

For more information:
Focus on the Family’s Operation Ultrasound project
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