Research Shows How to Win Pro-life Support
By Tom Kelly

Pro-lifers have been handed a battle plan for conversion of people to the cause of the unborn. A poll commissioned by Alliance for Life Ontario to gauge attitudes to abortion across the province has revealed important facts:

• We now know what to say to people to convert them to pro-life.
• We now know which people are most likely to be converted.
• We now know that more than half of the population appears to be conflicted in their views on abortion. Most want some degree of protection for the unborn.

Researchers at the U.S. firm Baselice Associates asked people by phone and mail during the summer of 2001 to identify their attitudes to abortion in different ways - if it should be legal; whether they supported or opposed abortion; and whether they regarded themselves pro-life or pro-choice.

Only 13 per cent of the respondents said abortion should be legal for any reason at any time during a woman's pregnancy. A small minority of Ontarians seem to agree with abortion on demand.

One in 10 said abortion should never be legal, and somewhat higher percentages said it should be legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or for cases of rape or incest. When these figures are totalled, they show that nearly half believe that abortion should be either never legal or legal only under very limited circumstances.

However, fewer people (just over one third) said they opposed abortion, and fewer still called themselves pro-life.

When the researchers compared these results, they found that slightly more than half of the people were inconsistent in their attitudes to abortion; for example, some of those who wanted some legal restrictions didn't oppose abortion and didn't want to be labelled pro-life.

The researchers then gave the people some facts about abortion and life in the womb. The percentage who were opposed to abortion rose from 36 to 44 per cent, and most of the converts were people who had been unsure. The percentage that found abortion to be an unacceptable solution to an unplanned pregnancy rose to just more than half.

Here are some of the facts people didn't know that were powerful in changing their minds, and that we can use to win converts:

• There's no law prohibiting abortions through all nine months; people polled were particularly opposed to partial-birth abortions.
• Records (including Statistics Canada figures) show that more than one third of all abortions today are repeat abortions (the second, third, or fourth for the same person); people in the poll generally rejected abortion as birth control.
• Many women are encouraged or coerced into abortions by their boyfriends who don't want the responsibility of a child.
• Women who have abortions may suffer deep regret and depression for years after.
• Thousands more people wait to adopt children than there are babies available-people recognize adoption as the loving option.
• Abortion was legalized over 30 years ago, before sonograms and medical advancements revealed the baby's life prior to birth.
• Ultrasounds show unborn babies sucking thumbs or waving arms and legs as early as seven weeks into a pregnancy, the heart begins to beat at 21 days, and brain waves can be measured as early as 40 days.
• Over 275 abortions occur each day in Canada.
• There is financial and emotional help available for girls and women with unplanned pregnancies.

Who are we most likely to convert? We will find them among Catholics and Evangelical Christians. Although these two groups are the strongest in their defence of the unborn, significant percentages are ambivalent about abortion and some are unopposed. The reasons, no doubt, lie in a lack of awareness of the facts, since the ambivalent members of both those groups switched to pro-life attitudes more readily than did any others.

The lesson is clear, and perhaps one we knew all along: the facts that abortion kills babies and harms women speak for themselves. They are our strongest weapons, and people from our own faith traditions are the most willing to be persuaded to take them up.

This article first appeared in the Hamilton Right to Life newsletter.