Abortion is one of the most relevant issues of our time. As with many other subjects capable of arousing strong emotion, people tend to assume that the U.S. public is evenly divided, in this case between the “pro-choice” and “pro-life” positions. And some frequently cited polling would lead you to believe that it is indeed the case. For example, a recent Gallup poll found 49 percent self-identify as pro-choice and 47 percent as pro-life.1 But I consider these data to be misleading, seeing that more nuanced research paints quite a different picture. A 2021 survey conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that while 61 percent of Americans agree abortion should be legal in some or most circumstances in the first trimester, the vast majority of Americans (80 percent) oppose abortion in the third trimester, and a significant majority (65 percent) even oppose abortion in the second trimester.2
Such polling numbers help to clarify this issue and show that most Americans do not align with the most extreme pro-choice view, which supports the right to even late term abortions. I am pro-life, and in my 2020 book, The Choice: The Abortion Divide in America, I countered 21 of the most common pro-choice arguments, from “a fetus is a cluster of cells” to “my body, my choice” to “abortion empowers women.”3 Here I will address a few of the strongest of these arguments, and in so doing make the case against abortion, and thus, for life.