A Social Stigma for Abortion? Let’s Hope So : A new study suggests that it may go the way of smoking.

New figures released recently by the Alan Guttmacher Institute showed that the rate of abortions performed in the United States is at its lowest since 1979. The Guttmacher Institute, which is the research arm of the powerful pro-abortion organization Planned Parenthood, cited several reasons for the drop: a reduced number of abortion clinics and abortionists who perform them, increased influence of pro-life demonstrations and a growing aversion to abortion on moral grounds.

With the Supreme Court firmly committed to keeping abortion legal, this decline should signal new hope for pro-lifers. Despite unmovable obstacles, the anti-abortion message is finally beginning to penetrate the public’s consciousness, after 21 long years. I believe that the downturn in abortion statistics marks the beginning of the end for abortion on demand, much as early no-smoking areas marked the beginning of the end of unrestricted tobacco fumes in public places.

The issues of abortion and smoking have much in common. Both industries quickly recognized that public ignorance can be a powerful tool when properly used by the barons of deceit. Like smoking, abortion was reduced to a non-harmful procedure: Cigarettes were touted as providing a calming stimulus; the living fetus became a glob of tissue. Both have received millions of tax dollars on top of the millions they make as profitable businesses. Both have been slickly packaged, skillfully marketed and shamefully popularized. Both employ influential Washington lobbyists, and both remain under the safety net of “choice.”

The tobacco and abortion industries both have adopted variations of the rationale that “no one’s forcing you, so don’t try to stop me.” Both industries vehemently deny scientific facts and continue to bastardize the truth. But the most undeniable fact of all is that both kill.

In the late 1960s, the pro-abortion movement methodically plotted a strategy that would overturn the long-standing social taboo of terminating fetal life. In short, they figured out a way to successfully sell killing to the American public. They began by enlisting the support of willing media, bombarding them with statistics and stories that went unchallenged by a traditionally skeptical profession. Next, they turned abortion into a “women’s-rights issue,” pitting the entire sex against the historically male-dominated institutions of religion. Women vs. men, rights vs. religion, the timing was impeccable, as many people were already in the process of waging a war for civil rights. The civil-rights movement, the women’s movement and the peace movement all made the timing ripe for this kind of thinking.

In 1973, the abortion industry then achieved legalization of abortion for the entire nine months of pregnancy through the infamous Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. Next, stealing a page from the tobacco industry’s handbook, they soon made abortion socially acceptable. Medical students, in many cases, were required to learn how to perform abortions, which ensured the removal of any stigma from the procedure. The fetus was reduced to nothing more than a fertilized egg, federal funds were obtained and the industry began to boom.

The opposition, on the other hand, was underfunded, overworked and had zero access to hostile and biased media. But what the anti-abortion movement did have were facts and dedication. Much like the anti-smoking crusaders, pro-lifers aggressively took on one of the most powerful industries in the country. And finally, after years of pro-lifers’ continual vigilance and stamina, an enlightened public is beginning to “choose” to say no to abortion. In the end, however, abortion, like smoking, will never be completely outlawed. It will always to some degree be available and legal. But through committed activists, diligent volunteers and persistent education on fetal life, the demand for abortion, like smoking, seems to be burning itself out.

Thank goodness that abortion, like smoking, is finally beginning to have a negative social stigma attached to it, reminding us that evil always has a lifespan, while truth is timeless.