Many conservative Christians said despite his long list of improprieties and morally questionable behavior, Donald Trump was the right choice for president because a Republican would be the best option on “life.” ADVERTISING Many conservative Christians said despite his long
Many conservative Christians said despite his long list of improprieties and morally questionable behavior, Donald Trump was the right choice for president because a Republican would be the best option on “life.”
The numbers on the ground don’t back up that belief, though.
Given conservative Christians’ hard-line position against abortion, it is odd they so infrequently acknowledge what should be a cause for celebration: The abortion rate fell to an all-time-low in 2014 (the most recent numbers available) and has been decreasing for the past couple of decades, along with a rapid fall in the teen-pregnancy and early sex rates. The Guttmacher Institute, which is widely acknowledged as having the most comprehensive statistics on abortion, noted the raw number of annual abortions has dropped below the 1 million mark for the first time since the 1970s — even as the population has been increasing.
Despite some people’s belief that life was devalued by the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationally, abortions have decreased markedly the more deeply entrenched Roe has become in American society.
Researchers think that is the result of better health care, increased use of long-term contraception and initiatives that have slowed the rate of unplanned pregnancies. ..
During the annual “March for Life” last week in Washington, D.C., Vice President Mike Pence declared “life is winning again in America.”
The irony is that “life has been winning” in large part because of the kinds of policies — such as access to contraception — now under threat by the Trump administration and opposed by many conservative Christians.
White evangelical Christians made a deal to protect life, even at the expense of professed principles of morality, when they chose Trump over pro-abortion rights Hillary Clinton in November.
Let’s hope that deal doesn’t work against them by thwarting the country’s progress in protecting life at all stages.
— The Charlotte Observer
