Ryan Anderson: The pro-life movement needs to shift to promoting chastity and marriage

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 13, 2024 / 08:51 am

For the pro-life movement to achieve its goal of eliminating abortion, it must first help bring about a dramatic change in societal sexual ethics, according to a new essay by Ryan T. Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

“So long as nonmarital sex is expected, large numbers of Americans will view abortion as necessary emergency contraception,” Anderson concludes in his essay, titled “The Way Forward After Dobbs,” published in the Catholic-led ecumenical journal First Things.  

“So long as marriage rates are declining and marriage age is delayed — but the human sex drive persists — abortion rates will remain high,” Anderson writes.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, he argues, while a major victory for the pro-life movement, came at a time when support for abortion had already become firmly entrenched in the culture.  

“Generations of Americans were catechized in the beliefs that abortion is a right and that unborn babies have no rights — and that we have no duties to the unborn,” Anderson, who is Catholic, writes.

“Though [the] Dobbs [Supreme Court decision] did important work to repair part of the damage to our constitutional order, it doesn’t — couldn’t — erase half a century of political and social corruption,” Anderson said. 

Anderson argues that the shift in public opinion in favor of abortion that has taken place in recent years has resulted in the pro-life movement’s recent defeats at the ballot box. Although some states have passed legislation effectively restricting abortion, every ballot initiative that received a direct vote from the people has liberalized abortion policies, and in some cases, overruled state-level pro-life laws.

“The change in public opinion over the past decade is hard to come to grips with, but the pro-life movement needs to do just that,” Anderson said.

When Roe v. Wade was still in effect, Anderson said, “it was easier to affirm the dignity of the child in the womb” because such an affirmation “was abstract and did not imply a threat to anyone’s ‘choice.’”

“It seems that most Americans, even some who consider themselves pro-life, support four exceptions: rape, incest, life of the mother, and … ‘my case,’” Anderson continued. “Or ‘my daughter’s case,’ or ‘my girlfriend’s case.’”

Although some people who facilitate abortions “know that abortion stops a beating heart,” Anderson writes, “they don’t always care, or … they aren’t always willing to make the personal sacrifices that follow.” He noted that most abortions are procured when a pregnancy occurs outside of marriage and that one of the roots of the problem is “multiple generations of a sexual culture that incentivizes abortion.”

According to Anderson, the root cause is “the sexual revolution, a revolution that conservatives have never attempted to combat in a sustained way, despite many one-off campaigns and skirmishes.”

The sexual revolution began in the 1960s with a movement to increase social acceptance of sex outside of marriage. It was accompanied by the women’s liberation movement and the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the first birth control pill. 

“Our primary task isn’t to persuade people of the humanity of the unborn — anyone who has ever seen an ultrasound knows all about that — but to change how people lead their sexual lives,” Anderson says. “We have a pro-life movement, but could anyone seriously suggest that we have a pro-marriage or pro-chastity movement?”

Anderson notes that statistics show that among secular Americans, premarital sex is very common. It’s even common among Christians who regularly attend church services, he writes.

“Before we try to persuade the secular world of a Christian sexual ethic, we might try persuading Christians,” he says. 

Anderson encourages priests and pastors to preach about life and chastity from the pulpit, which he argues they do too rarely. He also says the movement needs “culture-forming, opinion-shaping organizations,” which he called “a daunting task.”

“Our cultural incrementalism can be broad-spectrum: new TV shows and movies that aren’t hokey after-school specials, policies to protect kids from the harms of social media and online pornography, effective church ministries,” Anderson adds. “The task is enormous. But we haven’t devoted enough time, treasure, or sophistication to it.”

Anderson also argues that the pro-life movement should “organize politically and help politicians find paths to success — not ask them to engage in political suicide missions.” He notes that even though pro-life efforts through ballot referendums have failed, many pro-life politicians have still found success in states in which the population voted to expand abortion.

“Policy wonks must devise effective pro-marriage policies,” Anderson concludes. “Cultural entrepreneurs must apply the professionalism of the conservative legal movement across our culture-shaping institutions. Most importantly, the Church must devise ministries that will transform lives, because short of religious revival, none of the changes we need will be possible.”