In a recent Marist poll reported by the Wall Street Journal, eighty
percent of Americans and some sixty-percent of self-described pro-choicers
oppose this extreme view. Instead, they support restricting abortion to the
first trimester of pregnancy.
Just more evidence that the landscape is changing. Not only is Clinton’s
extreme view on abortion unpopular—it’s outdated. A 2015 survey by the Public
Religion Research Institute found that millennials are more likely than their
parents to say that abortion ought to be legal only in certain stages and
certain circumstances. According to another poll by Students for Life of
America, just 17 percent of millennials agree with the Democratic presidential
nominee that abortion should be legal right up until birth.
All of this led Ruth Graham to conclude in Slate that the pro-life
movement is in the midst of a transition. But it’s not just in the sense that
it’s getting younger. It’s also attracting the
non-religious.
Not that long ago, being pro-life meant you were almost certainly a
Catholic or evangelical. But now, the belief that killing unborn babies is wrong
is transcending religious and even political boundaries.
Take Aimee Murphy, the 27-year-old founder of Pittsburgh’s
Life Matters Journal. Aimee was raped by an ex-boyfriend who pressured her to
get an abortion when she thought she was pregnant. That was when it clicked,
Aimee says. “I could not use violence to get what I wanted in life. I realized
that if I were to get an abortion, I would just be passing oppression on to a
child.”
Her appeal, like that of a growing group of young pro-lifers who aren’t
religious, is rooted in human rights, and the belief that our nation has
committed an unspeakable atrocity in the name of
convenience.
Kelsey Hazzard, founder of the group Secular Pro-Life, says the
non-religious argument against abortion has the potential to bring people on
board who would have never otherwise taken the message of life
seriously.
And Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, a Dallas resident who founded New Wave
Feminists, sees protecting the unborn and ending abortion as a deeply feminist
cause. She told Slate she doesn’t understand why so many fellow feminists treat
fertility “like a disease,” as if abortion is the only way women can achieve
their dreams. The culture of death tells women they must bear the consequences
of pregnancy alone, and Herndon-De La Rosa calls that “a grave form of
injustice.”
“We have to humanize the child,” she says “… this is a human being with
their own bodily autonomy,” an argument that she says is “a completely feminist
message,” but as we know has its roots in Christianity.
Of course, many of these secular pro-lifers hold views in other areas
Christians would deeply disagree with. For example, Maria Oswalt, a senior at
the University of Alabama who leads her school’s Students for Life club, say
LGBT issues and sexual wholeness have little to do with protecting the
unborn.
That’s wrong. If we teach anything here at the Colson Center, it’s that
these issues are connected. One of the great lies of the sexual revolution is
that the fulfillment of our desires is our greatest good. And abortion exists
because babies—which come from sex—get in the way of those
desires.
But at the same time, we should be thrilled and grateful to see the
message of life taking hold beyond the church and conservative politics.
Why? Because it’s true. The humanity of the
unborn is increasingly undeniable, and the extreme abortion views Hillary
Clinton represents are, in many ways, the past. The future belongs to the
defenders of life, even if they don’t always share our faith or our
politics.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Secular, Feminist, and Pro Life: The Message Goes Mainstream
Chuck Colson would often say that co-belligerency is helpful, not
harmful, to causes Christians hold dear. And as John mentioned, truth is
undeniable, certainly in sanctity of life issues, where an increasing number of
non-Christians agree with the pro-life perspective.
Breakpoint.
