PRI Weekly Briefing: The Coming Demographic Victory

 

Dear Colleague:
 
Abortion may be legal in America, but more and more Americans are choosing
life. This shift in attitude will have a positive demographic effect in
the years ahead. As more and more Americans choose life, America is
shifting towards the Culture of Life.
 
Steven Mosher
President
 
PRI Weekly Briefing
10 December 2003
Vol. 5 / No. 38
 
The Coming Demographic Victory
 
By Steven W. Mosher
 
Pro-lifers may be on the defensive in the courtroom, but they are winning
the battle of the cradle.
 
The first person to point this out to me was Father Paul Marx.  A family
sociologist by training, Father had noticed in his travels around the
United States that pro-lifers had larger families than the American
average.  I had observed the same thing.  Pro-life events attracted
families with four, six, or even eight children.  It only made sense, we
agreed, that those who respect the sanctity of unborn life would average
more children than those who do not.  For one thing, their children are at
far less risk of being aborted than are the children of pro-aborts.
 
It was left to crack HLI researcher Brian Clowes to clothe these
impressions with statistics.  Dr. Clowes concluded from the sketchy survey
data then available that there were significant, even striking differences
in fertility between the two groups.  While those who professed pro-life
sentiments far exceeded the American average of two children, those who
supported legal abortion fell far short of this figure.  Specifically, he
found that pro-lifers averaged three children, while pro-aborts averaged
one.  This is to say, pro-lifers were out reproducing pro-aborts by a
margin of three to one.
 
At the time, in the mid-nineties, the polls showed that Americans were
more or less evenly divided on the abortion question.  But if we were
right, the poll numbers would inexorably shift in a pro-life direction as
time passed.  Demography is destiny, after all.  If the pro-lifers were
having three times as many children as the pro-aborts, then the ranks of
the pro-lifers would swell while the ranks of the pro-aborts thinned.  The
pro-abortion movement would have signed its own death warrant.
Pro-lifers, on the other hand, would be busy signing birth certificates.
After a generation, the country would be overwhelmingly pro-life.
 
The mind is drawn toward pleasant prospects, but is there any hard
evidence of such a demographic shift?  I am happy to report that there is.
 A new Gallup poll of teenagers, reported on November 24, 2003 by
WorldNetDaily.com, found that 72 percent of those queried believe abortion
is morally wrong.

The survey of youth, aged 13 to 17, indicated just 19 percent believe
abortion should be legal in all circumstances, compared to 26 percent for
adults. About 47 percent of teens said it should be legal under some
circumstances, while 55 percent of adults agreed.  Most strikingly, about
32 percent of teens thought abortion should never be permitted, while only
17 percent of adults said the same.
Religious conviction played a part in these views.  Only 12 percent of
churchgoing youth thought that abortion is morally acceptable, compared
with about 38 percent of non-churchgoing youth.  About 40 percent of
churchgoing teens believe abortion should be illegal under any
circumstance, compared to 26 percent for non-churchgoers.
 
The Gallup Youth Survey was done through a scientific methodology via the
Internet to ensure a representative sample of the U.S. population. The
questionnaire was completed by 517 youths.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty
Commission, told Baptist Press that "We're winning the struggle for hearts
and minds.  The young people are more conservative than their parents."
 
But I believe it would be accurate to say that we are winning the battle
of the cradle.   The young people surveyed are, by and large, the sons and
daughters of parents of pro-life sentiments.  Like begets like, only in
greater number.
 
The battle is not over yet, however. 

The pro-aborts are not going quietly into demographic oblivion.  (Do they
ever do anything quietly?)  While they have largely stopped reproducing
themselves biologically, they are continuing to replicate themselves
culturally.  What do I mean?  I mean that the Culture of Death controls
MTV and passes its anti-people and anti-baby attitudes along to
unsuspecting young viewers.  It controls elite institutions of higher
education.  Tenured abortion radicals are zealous in making new recruits
to their anti-life views.
 
This means that it is not enough to simply welcome more children into the
world.  People of pro-life sentiments must ensure that their own
children-and as many other young people as they can reach-are properly
taught the Culture of Life values that they are the product of.  They will
find their pro-life views under assault as they go on to college, and must
be taught to defend them.
 
If this is done, then this country will move sharply in a pro-life
direction over the next decade.  And the stage will be set to outlaw not
merely Partial Birth Abortions, but all abortions.
 
Join with Population Research Institute as we work to make the world safe
for families and babies. Make your tax-deductible donation at our secure
Website at https://pop.org/donate.cfm
 
__________
Steve Mosher is the president of Population Research Institute, a
non-profit organization dedicated to debunking the myth that the world is
overpopulated.
 
__________
© 2003 Population Research Institute.
Permission to reprint granted. Redistribute widely. Credit required.
 
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__________
The Population Research Institute is dedicated to ending human rights
abuses committed in the name of "family planning," and to ending
counter-productive social and economic paradigms premised on the myth of
"overpopulation."
 
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