The Young and the Pro-Life

From Frederica Mathewes-Green (via Mere Comments – permalinks aren’t working; scroll down to “Young & Pro-Life: Get Used To It” ):

The other night a couple of dozen young professionals and college students, mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians, crowded into my house for dinner. We played a current events party game. We divided the group in two and assigned one side to favor, and the other to oppose, five controversial issues.

At the end of the discussion we went around the room and voted. One after another, these twenty- and thirty-somethings said that one issue was more important to them than any other. They were strongly opposed to abortion.

Abortion was the stealth factor in the recent election. It hadn’t been in the spotlight for a while. Many people may have thought it went away. Yet some polls show the pro-life position is quietly growing, especially among young people.

Perhaps opposition to abortion was underestimated because pro-choicers began to believe their own propaganda. Perhaps they assumed pro-lifers were poor and uneducated, knee-jerk opponents of women’s rights. They didn’t make room for people like me.

I was the first feminist in my dorm, thirty years ago. I fought for abortion rights. But then I came to see that abortion is wrong. I learned that in the most common method the unborn child is sucked into a tiny tube. Well, you can picture the results. Advocates of abortion rights may see it as a medical procedure. My stand against abortion is a stand against violence, and I voted for the only candidate who gets this.

Same with my friend who works at a big-city newspaper. He was very angry about the war, and for awhile swore he’d vote against Bush. But in the end the abortion issue, and related biotech fears, caused him to pull the Republican lever. Another friend, a college professor and life-long Democrat, says his party ought to stand for the weak, the poor, and the threatened. That includes unborn children. He crossed over to vote for Bush. …