A growing number of Americans call themselves ‘pro-choice’ – but what’s really behind it?

In a recent op-ed for Reason Magazine, author Elizabeth Nolan Brown argued that since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, more Americans have begun to consider themselves “pro-choice.” The reasoning behind this change of heart is that they have been bombarded with emotional stories that exploit tragic and difficult pregnancy complications or prenatal diagnoses under the false impression that those situations require abortion. They don’t.

Brown explained that she went on the lookout for people who may “personally oppose abortion,” who also do not want to “ban” it. People like Audra Worlow.

“Audra Worlow thinks of herself as pro-life,” wrote Brown. “A 32-year-old, married stay-at-home mom in Ohio, Worlow takes her Catholic faith seriously. She’s against both in vitro fertilization (IVF), which she calls ‘another form of eugenics,’ and surrogacy. She thinks abortion is not only harmful to babies but also ‘psychologically damaging to women.”

However, she doesn’t believe outlawing abortion is the right way to go about ending it. She’s not alone. Brown wrote, “[A] strange thing happened in the aftermath of the pro-life movement’s great victory [in overturning Roe]: America became more pro-choice.”

Abortion polling

As proof, Brown cites a Pew Research Center poll from May 2024, which said 54% of Americans agree with the statement that “the decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman.” However, those who believe abortion “should be legal in all cases” accounted for just 25% of those polled, while those who think abortion “should be illegal in all cases” accounted for 8% of those polled.

Meanwhile, a Reuters/Ipsos poll from the same month asked more precise questions about the availability of abortion — and in doing so, revealed the distinction is in the details. The poll results showed that as gestational age increases, opposition to abortion also appears to increase. While Reuters claims 57% of respondents feel abortion should be “legal in all or most cases,” as gestational age increases, more Americans become uncomfortable with the legalized killing of preborn human beings.

When asked about support or opposition to a national law allowing abortion through “viability” (defined by the poll as 24-28 weeks), just 27% of the original 57% who said abortion should be “legal in most cases” indicated support for a law allowing abortion up until 24 weeks, while 71% opposed it.

In addition, respondents who said abortion should be legal at least some of the time were asked whether or not they would support a national law allowing abortion “only in cases to save the life of the mother, rape or incest.” An astounding 74% said “yes” they would support a law allowing abortion only to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest, while 24% said no, they wouldn’t support such a law.

So while Americans may consider themselves “pro-choice,” their opinions on abortion do not align with the pro-abortion politicians’ desire to allow abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

His Mind Completely Changed On Abortion

Pro-life laws

Brown said that as she interviewed self-proclaimed “pro-lifers” who oppose pro-life laws, there was one point of flawed reasoning that people seemed to keep pointing to — the fear that pro-life laws put women’s lives at risk.

“A lot of this is already proving to be life-threatening,” said Maureen Flatley, a 75-year-old pro-life Catholic who spoke to Brown.

And Worlow said, “I don’t like the idea that people run around saying, ‘It’s never medically necessary to have an abortion.’ That’s just not true. If you define an abortion as ending a baby’s life [in utero], it is – in very rare circumstances – 100 percent medically necessary to do, to prevent sepsis.”

More people are now believing this because of the media spin on pregnancy complications, but there is no pro-life law that puts women’s lives in danger.

There are doctors who either misunderstand the law or misunderstand what an induced abortion is, and therefore, fail to give women the proper medical treatment for their health emergencies. (Read more on that here.) And there are also politically focused abortionists who are intentionally misleading Americans on what an induced abortion is, and even changing definitions to fit their political goals. (More on that here.)

An induced abortion is the direct and intentional killing of a preborn child. The goal of an induced abortion is to produce a dead baby. It is not necessary to intentionally kill a child to save the mother or for any other reason.

In fact, board-certified OB/GYN Dr. Monique Ruberu and pro-abortion dual-certified nurse midwife and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner Lynn Wolf debated abortion recently, and during that debate, both women agreed that pro-life laws do not and would not prevent pregnant women from necessary receiving medical care.

If abortion is ‘rarely’ medically necessary, as pro-lifers like Worlow claim, then why would they be unsupportive of current pro-life laws, which restrict the use of abortion to only cases in which the mother’s health or life is at risk?

The Pro-Life Reply to: "Is Abortion Ever Medically Necessary?"

Prosecuting women

It seems these “pro-lifers” have more concerns with abortion laws than fear over women’s safety.

Trisha Butler, a mother of four in Tennessee and chair of the libertarian-leaning Liberal Party USA, is worried about “second- and third-level consequences” of pro-life laws. She thinks pro-life laws will lead to the prosecution of women “who have miscarriages.” She said that her “very uncomfortable compromise is… it has to be between a woman and her doctor. It has to be a medical thing.”

The idea that women will be prosecuted for miscarriage is fear-mongering with no basis in reality. Though the media claims there are cases of women being arrested for miscarriages, those stories typically hide the truth.

For example, the recent headline that a woman in South Carolina went to jail for “pregnancy loss” was misleading. There was a lot more to the story — such as her alleged visit to Planned Parenthood for abortion pills, and the birth of her living daughter on a toilet, where she left the baby despite a 911 operator telling her to take the baby out. The baby did not survive.

American media has been sharing similar deceptive stories for years regarding countries with pro-life laws, such as El Salvador. The media claims women there are in prison for miscarriage and stillbirths, but the truth (shown in medical records, with documented photos) is that the babies were born alive and murdered. They were thrown into septic tanks, stabbed, and strangled. These injuries are quite obvious in the heartbreaking photographic evidence.

Child abuse

Flatley, who has worked as a child welfare advocate, argued that abortion laws will only lead to increased child abuse. “Women who don’t want to parent” are “at the highest possible risk for abuse and neglect,” she claimed.

The idea of abortion as a method for preventing child abuse is not a new justification for legalized abortion. It has been used to promote legalized killing since before Roe. But since abortion was legalized, child abuse cases have dramatically increased.

Since 1973, the number of child abuse and neglect cases has risen from 167,000 annually to over 600,000. Nearly 4 million children received an investigation or alternative response from child protective services agencies in 2020, according to the National Childhood Alliance. In 2001, the Washington Post reported that the “rate of killing for infants before their first birth[day] rose from 7.2/100,000 to 8.7/100,000 between 1983-1991. It continued to rise thereafter, reaching 9.1/100,000 in 2000.”

Death by homicide was the only leading cause of death in children to rise during this time period.

The widespread acceptance of abortion has actually caused an increase in hatred for children. The historic pro-abortion rally signs stating, “No uterus, no opinion” and “my body, my choice” are now being joined by signs sporting slogans such as “F-ck them kids” and “Parasites don’t have rights.”

This kind of dehumanization is dangerous, and often leads society down roads toward staggering atrocities.

Does it get any more selfish?

Government interference

“My co-Catholics are like, ‘Well, what about the rights of the fetus?’ I agree that’s a living thing and it ought to have rights. And it sucks that it can’t,” Marc Randazza, a First Amendment attorney, told Brown. “But the only way that that fetus can have rights is if we move the jurisdiction of the government from outside your body to inside your body. Once they’re inside your body, there’s no limit to what they can do in there.”

“The government that has the power to tell you you can’t have an abortion is the same government that has the power to tell you you have to have an abortion,” he said.

This is untrue. The government has a duty to protect the vulnerable, and that includes preborn children, who are the most vulnerable members of society.

In addition, the government consistently regulates laws involving people’s bodies and what they can and can’t do with them. A person can’t take illicit drugs. In some states, it is considered child abuse to drink alcohol while pregnant, and in other states, women can be prosecuted for taking drugs while pregnant.

Despite this, though a person isn’t legally allowed to use his or her body to harm another person through violence — the violence of abortion is widely tolerated, accepted, and celebrated as “bodily autonomy” and “bodily rights” and “reproductive freedom.”

Equal Protection For All - The New North Star After The Overturn Of Roe v. Wade

‘No one likes abortion’

Finally, Jordan Willow Evans, who opposes abortion, told Brown, “It’s rare to find someone who genuinely wants to destroy life.” She claimed that abortion advocates “don’t themselves like abortions.”

But this is untrue.

Pro-abortion activists have called abortion “a powerful act of love,” and abortionist Warn Hern once said about committing late abortions, “I love it.” There are t-shirts that state, “Safe Sluts ‘heart’ abortion,” and Teen Vogue has promoted abortion as “popular” and “freedom” giving. Pro-abortion actress Martha Plimpton once described her “best” abortion, while Oprah Winfrey’s magazine encouraged women to celebrate abortions.

Every excuse used to justify abortion is flawed.