Pro-Life Generation

By Peter Blair, Staff Columnist

Published on Wednesday, January 27, 2010

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This past Friday was the 37th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in all 50 states. For the past 36 years, hundreds of thousands of pro-life people (approximately 300,000 this year) have gathered annually in D.C. on that anniversary to march on the Supreme Court. I had always wanted to go to the March for Life, but this year was the first time I was able to make it. Unexpectedly, the prevailing emotion that I felt during the March was complete and utter shock. I was in shock because at least as far as I could see, the majority of the people at the March were young — most no older than 25. Moreover, they were all, or at least seemed, peaceful, joyful and friendly.

I am a full supporter of the pro-life cause, and so I have a bias towards it. Even still, before going to the March I had been under the impression that the pro-life cause was composed almost exclusively of angry old ladies and crazy, unhinged old men. I don’t know exactly where I got this impression, though I am sure that the media had something to do with it. The pro-life movement, like all movements, has its extremists, and they always seem to get all the attention. If 299,999 peaceful young people show up to the March, and one angry old lady, it is the angry lady that will get on the evening news. But, regardless of where this misconception comes from, it is common in this country to have an incredibly skewed view of this movement.

Everywhere I looked I saw seas of high school and college-aged students who had come from across the country to register their support for the pro-life cause. Nearly every group brought a banner with its name on it, and I saw names of colleges from Ohio to Vermont. Many teenagers were holding up signs that said, “We are the pro-life generation.” I would have scoffed at that idea before the March, but now I am convinced that there is some truth to it. One cannot be around hundreds of thousands of youths singing, laughing and having fun while they march on Washington, and not alter one’s views of the pro-life movement. The youthful energy of the March was staggering.

With the election of President Barack Obama, who was very popular among the youth, it is incredibly easy to think that the pro-life movement is over and done with — a relic of past generations. Although I support the cause, I even believed something of the sort before the March. If, however, there is one thing that was clear to me from the March, it was that the pro-life movement isn’t losing steam. If anything, it’s gaining strength. I can’t pretend to be able to account for this development fully, but I certainly think from my conversations with other young pro-lifers that a great part of our generation’s support for the cause derives from the fact that we are living through the consequences of Roe v. Wade. Participants in the March constantly referenced a belief that one-third of our generation isn’t here because of abortion, and many college and high school students I have talked to said they realize that they could have been among that third. There is among young pro-lifers a sense of solidarity with those lost from our generation. People felt that the two-thirds that remain must speak for the one-third that never got a chance to speak.

I was told at the March by somebody who had gone many times that the average age lowers every year. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but after attending myself, it strikes me as a very likely proposition. Earlier this year, a Gallup opinion poll showed that, for the first time since Gallup started taking this poll, more Americans are pro-life (51 percent) than pro-choice (42 percent).

When that is taken together with the predominance of youth at events like the March for Life, I have great hope that the abortion debate might be shifting in this country. The received wisdom about the abortion debate is that it is deadlocked and irresolvable. With our generation, that may no longer be true.