Millennials are turning away from Planned Parenthood and are increasingly identifying with positions closer to the pro-life point of view than pro-choice, according to private polling being released today from Students for Life of America. Yet, the data also reveals what the abortion industry learned long ago: that the pro-choice and pro-life labels are ill-defined and useless.
“We wanted to see where millennials stood at this point in time – nearly a year after the Center for Medical Progress videos were released and Planned Parenthood was forced to defend their barbaric practice of profiting off of the sale of baby body parts and being just months away from the next presidential election,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America.
The polling, conducted by the Barna Group, revealed:
- 53% Millennials think abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances
- Only 17% of millennials agree with Hillary Clinton’s extreme stance on abortion
- A 19-point drop in the support of federal funding for Planned Parenthood from September 2015 to January 2016
- A 9% increase in opposition to abortion among millennials from 2012 to 2016
- A significant branding problem for the pro-life movement whereas millennials who tend to hold general pro-life positions don’t identify themselves as pro-life
“Planned Parenthood would have the nation believe that young women are fighting with them on their extreme abortion agenda but that’s not the case,” said Hawkins. “Planned Parenthood only has 275 campus groups and Students for Life has 1,043. Additionally, we have found that only 17% of millennials hold the extreme view on abortion – that it should be legal at any time for any reason – as Hillary Clinton, who Planned Parenthood militantly supports.”
The polling indicates a branding problem for the pro-life label as well, where millennials either don’t know what it means or they don’t want to be associated with it for one reason or another. While the data showed 53% of millennials agree that abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances, only 36% of the millennials we polled consider themselves pro-life all or some of the time. That’s a huge gap between those who think abortion should be illegal all or most of the time and those who identify as pro-life.
“The abortion industry recognized this problem with the pro-choice brand years ago and has sought to discard that label for fluffier ways to describe their affiliation as pro-abortion (‘women’s health’ ‘reproductive rights’),” said Hawkins. “Over the past 10 years, the image of the pro-life movement has trended younger and more mainstream, but the ‘pro-life’ brand still carries an image with which many people don’t want to associate themselves, despite their views on abortion.”
The polling and subsequent white papers on the data is an initiative of Students for Life’s newly-launched Institute for Pro-Life Advancement which is committed to researching the best ways to communicate our philosophically and scientifically-sound opposition to abortion and win this generation for the pro-life movement, especially those who see abortion as morally wrong but do not think it should be illegal.
Links available below to specific data and white papers:
- Views of Millennials on Abortion and the Brand of the Pro-Life Movement
- Views of Millennials about Planned Parenthood
- Polling Data
