This morning on his daily podcast, Albert Mohler discusses a new study confirming what James Taranto called in 2005 “The Roe Effect.” The “Roe Effect” is the theory that Roe vs. Wade has resulted in fewer Democratic voters over the decades. Over 50 million unborn babies have been killed since 1973, and those 50 million have occurred disproportionately among traditionally Democratic constituencies. If the theory were true, it would mean that Roe has eliminated a large portion of the voters who most likely would have adopted their parents’s pro-choice views.
This latest study, authored by two researchers from Northwestern University, has essentially confirmed that the “Roe Effect” is real. Here is a summary of their findings in their own words:
We examine the effect of fertility on abortion attitudes, a useful case study due to their strong correlation with family size and high parent-child correlation. We test the hypothesis that the comparatively high fertility of pro-life individuals has led to a more pro-life population using 34 years of GSS data (1977-2010). We find evidence that the abortion attitudes have lagged behind a liberalizing trend of other correlated attitudes, and consistent evidence that differential fertility between pro-life and pro-choice individuals has had a significant effect on this pattern. Future studies should account for differential fertility as a meaningful force of cohort replacement in studies of public opinion where parents and children are likely to share the same attitude.
What does this mean? It means that over the last 30 years people who support abortion rights tend to have less children and more abortions. Those who are pro-life tend to have more children and less abortions. The result: A greater number of young adults are pro-life in spite of liberalizing trends on other social issues (e.g., gay marriage).
The bottom line: An entire pro-abortion generation has been wiped out by abortion.
18 Comments
Don Johnson
See the Shakers for another example of this phenomenon. When a group is celibate, they tend to die out. Then there is the opposite effect, the more fertile a group is, the larger they get over time. One sees this with Mormons and the so-called ultra-orthodox in Israel.
James Harold Thomas
“My baby is pro choice”
Funny how she’s a baby when she’s wanted and a fetus when she’s not.
I take it back. It’s not funny. Not at all.
Paul Reed
hmm my comment isn’t posting
Paul Reed
Denny makes a lot of logic errors. First, it’s if he thinks abortion is the only way to limit children. Abstinence is every bit as effective as destroying a future potential adult. Second, having an pro-abortion viewpoint doesn’t mean you’ll have less kids. A bad girl can get a lot of abortions while young, but then grows up to be a Volvo-Driving-Soccer-Mom (google it) with the 3 kids, replacing the ones she aborted.
Ian Shaw
It’s a moral grievance to equate being able to replace aborted children with non-aborted children. It’s a word game when you say ‘future potential adult’. Abstinence as a method for birth control, may have the same premise as abortion, but nowhere near the final consequence.
Abstinence doesn’t not kill/destroy a future potential adult, nor a human life at all.
Paul Reed
sorry if you see duplicate comments on here — something must be wrong with my browser
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buddyglass
Without reading their research, I’m not sure why other liberal attitudes wouldn’t be affected as well. Do they not correlate as strongly between parents and children?
Lauren Bertrand
Evidently not. But that’s the kicker. What is the evidence? Even the Northwestern study “find[s] evidence that the abortion attitudes have lagged behind a liberalizing trend of other correlated attitudes”, but what is that evidence, and why did other attitudes liberalize, even among young Evangelicals?
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James Harold Thomas
One more thought re: “My baby is pro choice”. I thought it was called “brainwashing” when parents try to instill their values in their children. Or is that only for conservative values?
buddyglass
I’m afraid you thought wrong. Nobody considers it brainwashing in general for a parent to instill his or her values in a child. Including the most liberal of liberals.
Ian Shaw
I have yet to meet a post-modern person who does not think that instilling traditional values (Chirstian or not) is brainwashing or indoctrination.
buddyglass
Instilling traditional Christian values != instilling values. I know plenty of died-in-the-wool liberal parents who take great pains to instill values in their children and don’t view it as brainwashing.
I suspect that instilling a particular religious framework (Christian or no) is much more likely to be seen as “brainwashing” than something like, say, “it’s not right to bite other children”.
James Harold Thomas
Problem is, the pro-choice value is not “general”. It’s also part of a framework. Teaching children to be pro-choice is celebrated, while a “My baby is pro life” mom would have liberal fingers wagged in her face.
buddyglass
I doubt there would be charges of brainwashing, considering the child isn’t even out of the womb yet. If someone did level the charge of brainwashing against such a mom, he or she would likely also level it against the mom in the picture.
In any case, what you originally wrote, i.e. “I thought it was called “brainwashing” when parents try to instill their values in their children,” is not a view most parents take, even liberal ones.
Sure, liberal parents probably think its terrible that you would teach your kid that it should be criminal for a woman to abort a pregnancy. But most wouldn’t consider it brainwashing, depending on the methods you used to teach that value. Punishing a kid until he voices agreement would probably earn you the “brainwashing” label. Trying to teach kids that “pro-life is good” and “pro-choice is bad” before they’re even old enough to comprehend the what and why would probably also qualify.
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