Saturday, January 22, 2022

What’s New in Evangelical Views on Abortion? The Age Gap


Between 2016 and 2020, younger white evangelicals started to shift away from pro-life positions while older ones solidified their stances.

Abortion holds a unique place in the realm of American public opinion.

While views on issues like same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization have shifted dramatically over the last ten years, people tend to hold on to their positions on abortion. In my upcoming book, 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America, I spend a chapter explaining how abortion opinion is basically unchanged over the last four decades.

Evangelicals have been the religious group with the strongest views against abortion, and across generations, they’ve held to their pro-life stances. As recently as 2016, the age gap between younger and older generations on the issue was small and substantially insignificant.

But data from 2020 has begun to show a different trend. Younger white evangelicals have become more permissive of abortion, while older ones have moved in the opposite direction. Read More

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