Charles Krauthammer: Young people permissive, but not on abortion
by Kelli
Bill O’Reilly: But it’s a more permissive culture, you know… unfettered abortion, OK, for any reason, up until the birth process. There’s a struggle.
And the struggle is between, usually, people of faith and the secular progressives. And the secular progressives have the media in their pocket, so they’re powerful.
Charles Krauthammer: Look… I would start with a proposition that, somehow… the permissiveness is radically increasing.
I would say, one of the more remarkable phenomenon of the last 30 years is the increase in opposition to abortion among the young people. You would have thought, together with other trends, yes, the permissiveness on drugs and other stuff and on sex and all that, that you would get an increase in the lassitude for permissiveness about abortion.
But it’s the reverse. I think there has been an interesting relationship between the new sides, the imaging, the sonograms, the idea of the fetus as a person and actual increase in resistance.
~ Transcript from a recent broadcast of Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor, in which columnist and pundit Charles Krauthammer notes a counter-cultural movement in the arena of abortion in America, Fox News, December 10
Video at link (quote begins at 4:01).
[HT: Susie Allen]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
“one of the more remarkable phenomenon of the last 30 years is the increase in opposition to abortion among the young people.”
Has there really been a substantial change? Are “the young people” having substantially less abortions than 30 years ago?
I’ve long considered Krauthammer to be most level-headed, knowledgeable and well prepared conservative journalist ever. He is a nationally-recognized authority and has received many awards for his outstanding journalistic work. And he also is a physician.
He does not feed mistruths as so many lib journalists do. That is not his style.
Thomas, Krauthammer was awfully blind about how weak Romney’s organization, planning, and approach were. He had the rose-colored glasses on. I’m not saying it matters here, and you may be right about him, for the most part.
I’m asking if he has a meaningful point here. Do we see any real effect of what he claims? What is this “remarkable phenomenon” he speaks of? I’m wondering if it really is just a swing of a few percentage points in a poll, or something like that. And, if meanwhile the “young people” are having roughly the same number of abortions than in the past, then what is the big deal?
I think what he may be seeing is exactly what Nancy Keenan (retired now from NARAL) noted just a couple of years ago – “there are so many and they’re so young.” Apparently, she was pretty shocked. When she resigned, she also said she felt that it was time for a younger person to take the reigns in an attempt to reach Millennials with a pro-choice message, because too many young feminists were more complacent than she would like.
Check the Gallup polling data here. There is a strong upward trend from the mid 90’s (where “pro-life” was 33% of population) to now (50% of population).
That is not insignificant, in my opinion.
Kel, 33% to 50% is certainly significant. Has there been any change like that in the number of abortions for “young people”? I think the number of births among teenagers is down, for example, but there still could be a significant decline in abortions if the number of unwanted pregnancies went down enough.
Hi Maria,
Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe to Charles Krauthammer, “young people” are those ten years or more younger than he is? :D
Some data seems to suggest that younger people (from ages 18 to 29) tend to be less religious and have more liberal attitudes towards sex, but also less liberal attitudes towards abortion. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/style/surprise-mom-i-m-against-abortion.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
The teen pregnancy rate also went down, so I don’t know if the rate of young people aborting is down but very young people seem to be getting pregnant less. Abortions overall have decreased from the nineties, as well, so I suppose that could translate into less young people having them.