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Barnard's avatar

The abortion trend is a disturbing snapshot of our culture. My opinion was that Democrats manipulation of low info women who don't always bother to vote would help them a little, but not to the degree it appears to have done. Vermont, which has the lowest birthrate in the country voted 77-23% to make abortion legal at any point in pregnancy. Based on data I could find roughly 20% of pregnancies in Vermont end in abortion. In a post you made earlier this year I compared Vermont to a mainline church where the members seem unconcerned they don't have a future. That is consistent with these results.

Nationwide the results were closer but the results weren't better. In addition to young women who are content to be wage slaves to a corporation rather than raise a family, there appears to be a rise in Dave Portney type men who want abortion legal so they don't have to take responsibility for unwanted children. This is a suicidal mentality for our civilization.

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Spouting Thomas's avatar

I expect you'll ruffle some feathers with this one. But I largely agree. I'd also guess that, although no politician says this out loud anymore, a lot of people still hold the "safe, legal, rare" view that abortion is generally wrong, but they're not too bothered by women making that choice for themselves.

The Democrats made what turned out to be a persuasive rhetorical case around things like miscarriages turned wrong, because it reached even women who would never consider abortion for themselves. The idea of the healthcare system failing you is very real and very scary, and the idea of other women deciding to quietly kill their own children behind closed doors is pretty abstract, so why, they reasoned, should you risk one to prevent the other?

Maybe it has always been this way, but I'll speculate that the pro-life cause is even more abstract in an atomized society in which we share ever-fewer bonds with our neighbors or countrymen, so those abortions one town over might as well be happening in Zambia. People have a far stronger emotional reaction to issues that are either personal, or that can successfully be framed as out-group vs. in-group. Unborn children, unfortunately, seldom find themselves in anyone's in-group besides their own family. And "abortion-seeking mothers" aren't a clear out-group to many people, either.

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