A change of heart on abortion

William McGurn
The Wall Street Journal

You’d never know it by reading the mainstream media, but America’s views on abortion have undergone a fundamental shift, said William McGurn. A recent Gallup survey found that 50 percent of our citizens now consider abortion “morally wrong,” as opposed to 38 percent who find it “morally acceptable.” Slightly more Americans consider themselves “pro-life” than “pro-choice” (47 percent to 45 percent). Make no mistake: Most Americans still do not want Roe v. Wade overturned or abortion to become illegal in all circumstances. But the data clearly suggests that Americans see abortion “as an evil, while also regarding it, in certain circumstances, as a necessary evil.”

Gallup found that a majority of people favor legal restrictions on abortion “that go way beyond current law,” making it rare indeed. This political reality is being ignored by the pro-choice orthodoxy that dominates the media, film and TV industries, and academia, which stubbornly clings to the notion that only a handful of Christian evangelicals have “strong moral qualms” about terminating life in the womb. “Who’s really out of touch with the American people here?”