By Dave Andrusko
A friend from England forwarded me a story that appeared in The Spectator yesterday that ran under the arresting headline, “For me and an increasing number of young people, each abortion is a death: Disquiet about abortion is growing among 18- to 24-year-olds.” It’s written by Daniel Hitchens, who describes himself as a member of Oxford Students for Life.
Why is this particular story very much worth your reading? Haven’t we talked and written many, many times about how much more pro-life younger people are today?
Sure. But here’s why I read Hitchens’ piece not once, but twice.
I’m not much into pity parties, but when it seems as if the whole world is against us, I think of pro-lifers in places like England and Canada. Their uphill struggle requires the patience of Job and unrelenting optimism in the face of overwhelming odds. (Pope John could have had those two countries in his mind when he talked about the “culture of death.)
Given “Britain’s abortion culture,” Hitchens preaches patience. He advises his readers to look both at opinion polls and anecdotal evidence. Both show “The number of young people who are opposed to abortion, or at least worried about it, is growing — this despite the usual hostility from student unions.”
For example, he cites an April ComRes survey. “Asked whether the abortion limit should be halved to 12 weeks, the most likely age group to agree were, by some distance, the 18- to 24-year-olds: 48 per cent said yes, only 26 per cent no.” In Great Britain, that is big (and encouraging) news.
But the anecdotal evidence is even more compelling. Hitchens writes beautiful about the revelatory qualities of four-color ultrasounds. With that in mind, Hitchens wrote about his two men he had recently talked to.
one had grown-up kids, the other’s first son was on the way. As they compared notes, it became clear that the younger dad knew much more about his unborn son at 20 weeks than the older one had.
And there’s the enormous conscious-raising impact of popular culture, which he addresses next in his op-ed. The following is a lengthy but telling quote:
This understanding has moved quietly into the public imagination, showing up in all kinds of places: the scene in Gravity where Sandra Bullock adopts the foetal position and slowly rotates inside the womb-like structure of the spacecraft; the new Weetabix [a breakfast cereal] ad, ‘Incredible Inside’, a tribute to the human body which includes a black-and-white ultrasound of the unborn waving its arms and legs; artworks such as Damien Hirst’s ‘The Miraculous Journey’, 14 gigantic bronze sculptures depicting the stages of development from conception to birth.
Meanwhile, a succession of news stories reveals the extent of scientific and popular interest in the unborn. Just from June of this year: ‘Reading fairytale stories can calm unborn babies’ (Scotsman); ‘Mother’s diet before conception can affect child’s lifelong risk of disease’ (Guardian); ‘Wearable device provides continuous fetal monitoring’ (Reuters).
If you are on the other side of the battle over the little ones, reading Hitchens–especially reading his list of indirect influences that are humanizing and making more recognizable the “least among us”–you would have to be deeply worried.
Take that in the context of the revolutionary impact of the spate of undercover Planned Parenthood videos showing PPFA big shots at their worst and what is the inevitable conclusion (much as you wish otherwise)?
That you are on the wrong side of history.