Changing the National Mindset on Abortion| National Catholic Register

October is Respect Life Month, and Oct. 6 is Respect Life Sunday.

In anticipation of both, Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, the chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities published a statement in which he soberly stated:

“We thankfully no longer live under the regime of Roe v. Wade, and our elected officials are now empowered to reduce or end abortion. But what we now see is that fifty years of virtually unlimited abortion has tragically created a national mindset where many Americans have become comfortable with some amount of abortion. This allows the abortion industry to continue to provide any amount of abortion. Given this challenge, the U.S. bishops have affirmed that, while it is important to address all the ways in which human life is threatened, ‘abortion remains our pre-eminent priority as it directly attacks our most vulnerable brothers and sisters, destroying more than a million lives each year in our country alone.’”

Noting the many candidates for elected office for whom the destruction of innocent human life in the womb is their major campaign emphasis, he added:

“Abortion has become the pre-eminent priority for others as well. We see many politicians celebrating the destruction of preborn children, and protecting access to abortion, even up until the moment of birth. Few leaders are standing up to limit the harm of chemical abortion (abortion pills) to mothers and children, which is now the most common form of abortion. And heading into the November elections, as many as ten states face gravely evil ballot initiatives that would enshrine abortion in their state constitutions.”

Bishop Burbidge urged all Catholics to join in a “concerted month of prayer” from the beginning of October through the Nov. 5 elections and to renew their commitments to work for the legal protection of innocent human life, vote for candidates who will defend the life and dignity of every human person, call for policies that assist women and children in need, assist in the Church’s Walking With Moms in Need parish initiative, and extend a merciful hand, like through Project Rachel, to all those suffering from participation in abortion.

Bishop Burbidge’s comments about the “national mindset” on abortion, in which the majority of Americans have sadly become “comfortable with some amount of abortion,” is a clearsighted read of polls and ballot initiatives since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022. Understanding this mentality and how to change it are, therefore, urgent issues for Catholics and pro-life leaders.

Ryan Anderson, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., ably took up that challenge in a brilliant, nearly-5,000-word article in the October 2024 edition of First Things.

In “The Way Forward After Dobbs,” Anderson noted first the good news: “Over the past few months, children have been born, and some have celebrated their birthdays, because Dobbs allowed their states to provide them with legal protections against the lethal violence of abortion. Some of these little ones are already walking, talking, and giggling, thanks to fifty years of work by pro-life activists.”

But he quickly got to the problem: “Every time abortion policies have appeared on state ballots since Dobbs, the people have voted against life” and “public opinion has shifted drastically in favor of abortion in the past decade.” He said that just as it took 50 years to overturn Roe, “it may take even longer for us” to change that national mindset and protect every unborn child. He urged us to be “committed for the long haul.”

The reason why it will take that long is because “our entire constitutional, political, and social order was corrupted by fifty years of Roe,” which darkened our national conscience. “Generations of Americans were catechized in the beliefs that abortion is a right and that unborn babies have no rights — and that we have no duties to the unborn.” The results are that even though most Americans support restrictions on abortion, they will opt for a “radically permissive legal regime if they think the alternative is a complete prohibition of abortion.” That’s because, he wrote, “most Americans, even some who consider themselves pro-life, support four [abortion] exceptions: rape, incest, life of the mother, and … ‘my case.’ Or ‘my daughter’s case,’ or ‘my girlfriend’s case.’”

He noted the trends in the mentality among women and among young people. Among American women — who as mothers, teachers, counselors and nurses have a powerful influence on succeeding generations — support for unlimited abortion has grown from 30% to 40% over the course of the last decade. And now 83% of 18-to-29-year-olds say they support first-trimester abortions. Sociologically dubbed the “anxious generation,” the young are particularly anxious and fearful of unwanted pregnancies.

Because of advances in medical technology like ultrasounds, he said, few are vulnerable to the pro-abortion propaganda of yesteryear, that what’s being killed in an abortion is just a clump of cells or potential life. The new mentality, he noted, was candidly articulated by Bill Maher on his television program in April: “They think it’s murder. And it kind of is. I’m just okay with that.”

That’s what 50 years of Roe helped to produce.

To convert that mindset, and to help create a culture of life, will require a few things, Anderson argued.

The first is to recognize that the abortion mindset flows from the sexual revolution. The reason why many Americans who believe that human life begins at conception nevertheless hold that a mother should have the choice to abort is because, “so long as nonmarital sex is expected, large numbers of Americans will view abortion as necessary emergency contraception.” That means “our primary task isn’t to persuade people of the humanity of the unborn … but to change how people lead their sexual lives.”

That will involve renewing a culture of marriage. “Four percent of babies conceived in marriage will be aborted,” he noted, “compared to 40 percent of children conceived outside of marriage. Meanwhile, 13 percent of women who have abortions are married, and 87 percent are unmarried. Nonmarital sex is the main cause of abortion. Marriage is the best protector of unborn human life.”

For the pro-life movement to succeed, he suggested, there needs to be a pro-chastity movement and a pro-marriage movement. “The root cause of virtually all of our social problems is the collapse of marriage and family following the sexual revolution. Yet so little sustained, organized, strategic effort has gone into responding to this collapse. We must think … through: How can we reach ordinary people … and help them reject the lies of the sexual revolution? How can we help people live the virtue of chastity? How can we help people get married and stay married?”

That, he insisted, should fittingly begin within Christian churches, where data show that the vast majority of Christian young people, including 62% of young Catholics, believe that casual sex before marriage is morally acceptable and do not live chastely before marriage.

He added, “Seventy percent of women who have abortions identify as Christian. More than one-third report attending church at least monthly. Of these monthly attendees, just over half said their local churches had no influence over their decisions to abort. Apart from Respect Life Sunday, when do we hear about life from the pulpit — or, for that matter, about chastity?”

He concluded, “The Church must devise ministries that will transform lives, because short of religious revival, none of the changes we need will be possible.”

That necessary revival can begin this Respect Life Month — and from the Church’s pulpits on Respect Life Sunday.

National Catholic Register