A growing collection of evidence indicates that Reagan Babies are more conservative than our parents. This is especially evident in the issue of abortion.
The rising generation of Americans has been shaped profoundly by two events that have anniversaries this week. The first event was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade 34 years ago. The second event was the inauguration of Ronald Reagan 25 years ago.
Because of the first event, one-fourth of our generation is no longer alive. Roe Babies, 45 million of them since 1973, are missing.
But there are some positive signs on the cultural horizon. In recent years, public opinion regarding abortion has continually shifted toward the pro-life position. The number of Americans calling themselves pro-choice has declined by 10 points since 1995, while the number of Americans calling themselves pro-life has increased 16 points. According to a Gallup poll, a decade ago, 56 percent of Americans considered themselves pro-choice and 33 percent said they were pro-life. Today, according to a Zogby poll, 49 percent of Americans say they are pro-life, compared to 46 percent who say they are pro-choice.
The most important reason for this shift is the survivors of abortion. Reagan Babies, born between 1981 and 1989, number about 30 million. Reagan Babies are presently in high school, college, on the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, and emerging in the workplace. A growing collection of evidence indicates that Reagan Babies are more conservative than our parents. This is especially evident in the issue of abortion.
First, Reagan Babies are the most pro-life group in the nation. Gallup found that the highest support for restrictions on abortion was held among eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds. According to a 2003 Gallup poll, 32 percent of thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds are in favor of a complete legal ban on abortion, compared to only 26 percent of adults. Teens who attend church were more likely than those who do not to support an abortion ban, at 40 percent compared to 26 percent. Seventy-two percent of teenagers consider abortion morally wrong.
A Pace University/Rock the Vote survey of new voters taken before the 2004 election revealed that 54 percent were pro-life (believing that “all abortions should be made illegal” or “abortion should be legal only in the most extreme cases, such as to save the life of the mother, incest, or rape”), compared to only 44 percent who were pro-abortion. An amazing 61 percent of Latino and 59 percent of black first-time voters were pro-life. Among first-time voters, 52 percent of self-identified moderates were pro-life and 45 percent were pro-abortion.
And a 2004 Zogby poll shows that 60 percent of eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds support complete restriction of abortion or minimal exceptions for the life of the mother, rape, or incest.
Second, the pro-abortion constituency is aging rapidly. A comparison of membership lists between Planned Parenthood and the National Right to Life Federation reveals that the average pro-abortion activist is ten years older than the average pro-life activist. The face of the abortion industry in the twenty-first century is the rapidly aging “liberated” radical.
Reagan Babies don’t see abortion as liberation. “When I was their age, I thought abortion meant liberation for women,” boomer ex-radical feminist Frederica Mathewes-Green wrote. “For them, abortion means violence against children. The meaning of abortion is changing, and as it does, minds change as well. It’s not surprising that this change would begin with the young. After all, it is their generation that is under attack: anyone under the age of twenty-eight could have been killed this way. A fourth of their generation was.” So it’s not just another political issue for Reagan Babies; it is a matter of life and death. Sarah McKalips of the pro-life group Rock for Life says that youth “don’t see abortion as just a women’s rights issue, they also see it as a human rights issue.”
Many of the faces I saw when I went to the annual March for Life in the nation’s capital a couple years ago were young and vibrant. Young marchers wore T-shirts printed by Rock for Life that read, “You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation.”
Reagan Babies are standing up for Roe Babies. Slowly, young Americans are helping to rebuild a culture of life. Doing so means more than merely overturning Roe v. Wade — it means that hearts and minds must be changed. Soon, we must pray, they will stop killing our generation.
I think Mr. Ziegler is right about younger people viewing abortion as a human rights issue, it is, but I think he is wrong about it being a "stop killing my generation" attitude. The "my generation" attitude is one of those groupthink curses that, while a good way to bring sentiment to the matter, is overshadowing the really persuasive arguement that the way abortion was thrust upon the American people is simply unjust and nothing unjust can stand forever. If these kids are really carrying signs that say "Stop Killing My Generation" they are missing the mark.
Number 1: I'm a very committed Christian and a father, two things that won't allow be to see anything positive about abortion, Roe V. Wade notwithstanding. The precious gift of life is the most blessed thing I know.
Number 2: I feel I'm forced to oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And here's why:
To criminalize abortion at this point won't stop abortions from taking place. Prohibition didn't stop the drinking, buying, or selling of booze, but it did give rise to new avenues of crime. When people feel their "rights" are taken away, they become angry, rebelious, and even more resistant to the opposing side.
Furthermore, in the event of an overturn, the traffic to Canada, where there is absolutely no restriction whatsoever on abortion, will escalate and open new business opportunities here to those who'll help get women there en masse. And the undesirables here on the homefront that will go into the back-alley abortion business, like the old days, will be horrible.
I think the most intelligent thing Ziegler said was that we must change the hearts and minds of people. Amen! This will be better than changing the law. Helping educate women to the other options open to them besides abortion, and to the precious gift that new life is, will be the most effective thing in the big picture. If we could devote our energies – both our prayerful energies and our proactive ones – to that rather than seeking to criminalize the act, I feel we could come nearing winning a war rather than a mere battle.
I teach high school, and yes, it's amazing how many, perhaps the majority, of young people these days say they oppose abortion, as was pointed out by Ziegler. But when you then bring into the discussion such questions as those regarding rape, incest, danger to the mother, and most importantly, cases where a child will be born into a horrible, violent, crime-ridden, no-chance-at-a-quality-of-life situation where that child was unwanted in the first place, the numbers go down dramatically. So the "evidence" of polls is sometimes a bit misleading, like any polls.
Bottom line: we have to change the hearts and minds of people. God help us to do that.
I hope Mr. Ziegler is correct, this will mean there is hope for our future. 45 million murdered since 1973 is a distressing sadness.
Dan, I am also a Christian, but this is where your comparison between prohibition of alcohol and abortion falls apart. Alcohol consumption is not always a problem, Jesus drank wine, the lack of moderation and it's attendant effects are the problem, thus we legislate violations causing harm to others. Abortion has no moderate effect, one can't kill in moderate manner, each abortive action is in itself harmful (indeed fatal) to another.
I appreciate your response, David, and you're right that drinking is in no way equal to abortion. Perhaps it's a mistake my trying to use that to back my point. But the point I meant to make, however unsuccessful I might have been, is that a law banning abortion at this point in time will not stop it from taking place. Did any of us ever know of people on one side of a hotly debated issue (each side of which felt equally passionate about being right) that when a law was passed against their side, simply acquiesced and complied with it rather than bowing their back all the more and resisting it?
And what about all the new crime that will result in the event of an overturn of Roe v. Wade? I'm sure some feel, perhaps rightly, that changing the law will save at least some unborn babies. But what about the trade-off, that of women's lives as well as their fetuses' lives being lost through botched abortions in the criminal world, just as in the pre-Roe v. Wade days? Going back to the prohibition issue, yes, drinking is not necessarily an evil thing, and no one ever went blind from drinking before prohibition. During prohibition people indeed went blind because of organized crime secretly using turpentine in the bootlegged booze due to its being cheaper to acquire.
I have to say it again: I feel the same toward the act of abortion as all of you. However, we will not root out the evil by changing the law. WE MUST CHANGE PEOPLE'S HEARTS.
And I have to make one last point, and here is where I feel I'll part company with many conservatives and certainly many of my fellows in the Christian community: In the case of a child that is to be born into a deplorable environment of crime, poverty, probable sexual abuse, and perhaps eventually street gang warfare once reaching the "proper" age, I have to say that I'd rather see such a child, provided we're talking about nothing more than a newly fertilized embryo and not a third trimester situation, sent back into the hands of God – at whoever's hand – rather than born into that situation where they were never wanted in the first place. Clinics are currently providing this option to women in that situation. Could I ever be a party to such a thing, personally? Admittedly, no. But then I was born into a relatively "cushy" world and have always had a very blessed life.
P.S. My thanks to Mr. Zeigler for the very kind email he sent to me.
[...] The following article by Hans Zieger appears to have catalyzed some good discussion on the subject of abortion: "Roe Babies and Reagan Babies". [...]
Maybe the reason that the younger generation is more inclined to think abortion is wrong, is because the people were actually born. The mostly liberal people had the abortions. Conervatives tend to have their children and raise them in a conservative environment. I know this is a generalization, but for the most part, I think that this is true.
Quayle, generalisations like yours are why Fox News is so popular. Right-wing propaganda trying to bury anything that is slightly left of center on the ideological scale. It's sad, but true.
Nice ad hominem Tyso. Thank you for giving us an example of the debate tactics utilized by the left…much appreciated. How, exactly, is Fox News “burying” the left wing point of view? Establishing a relatively conservative news outlet, and I say “relatively” because Fox is conservative relative to the dozens of other cable news providers, does not indicate a propagandizing attack on left wing ideology.