Not much #abortion news lately, but its coming. Not just the election, but SCOTUS can't punt forever on addressing the massive legislative confusion in the states.

That confusion, we learn from an important new study from @NotreDame, mirrors general confusion in the culture. 1/

Remarkably, there has never been a deep qualitative dive into general US views on abortion.

Seriously. Never.

Until now:

@TriciaCBruce and her team of researchers undertook a meretriciously rigorous process of deep interviewing and have given us the first real data. 2/

In Beyond the Abortion Wars, I showed that the abortion debate--especially over policy--is immensely complex and cannot fit into a simplistic life/choice binary.

Even with more complex survey questions we still don't really get at the heart of what people actually believe. 3/

Dr. Bruce and her team of researchers, none of whom have a dog in this fight, have finally given us the important qualitative data we didn't have before. Unfiltered. Unbiased. It is to Notre Dame's ( @McGrathND's) credit that they insisted on this data coming out this way. 4/

You should read the whole report for yourself and make your own judgments. It is about 50 readable pages: https://news.nd.edu/assets/395804/how_americans_understand_abortion_final_7_15_20.pdf (Dr. Bruce will also having a major book on the subject for which you should look out.) But here are three major takeaways from the study... 5/

First, US Americans rarely talk about abortion and don't have well thought out views on the issues surrounding it. In many situations, they don't feel comfortable talking about it...not least because, for many of them (across a spectrum of views), it is a very emotional topic. 6/

Second, to the extent that they are able to articulate their views, the categories (again, mostly "pro-life" or "pro-choice") they have available to do this are inadequate. We need new language and categories to actually reflect the views most US Americans have about abortion. 7/

Third, unlike many of those who are leading the abortion rights movement today, virtually no one sees abortion as a good thing. Overwhelming majorities, even if they want abortion broadly legal, think abortion is bad and that it ought to be limited in various significant ways. 8/

There's more: do read the report. But here are 4 takeaways I have personally as a pro-lifer:

First, done correctly, there is tremendous room for education on these issues. Even eagerness to learn more...in the right circumstances. We should engage with careful confidence. 9/

Second, we should talk about the circumstances surrounding abortion at least as much as we do abortion itself. There is not only room here for obvious common ground, but it is the clearest way to actually build relationships and trust for talking about the act of abortion. 10/

Third, it is not a matter of "if" but "when" the life/choice binary is going to be replaced. We should think hard about how we can be active in shaping a conversation which reflects the real views of real people. I have some suggestions for that here: https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2017/01/replace-pro-lifepro-choice-binary/ 11/

Fourth, this study is very good news for those who want to protect prenatal children and their mothers. The US status quo--an uncritical focus on privacy and autonomy--has produced a culture of extreme abortion-permissiveness that's wildly different from other countries. 12/

Very happily, this study shows that the general public in the US-even without the needed engagement and education they've shown they want-has already soundly rejected a culture of extreme abortion permissiveness. In fact, many don't even know what our current abortion law is. /13

If we heed this study, the extreme US status quo on abortion is not long for this world.

Significantly, achieving this means changing how pro-lifers have often done things in the past.

But armed with this data, we should go about our creative new work with confidence.

/fin