In a New York Times interview last week, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., accused millennial women of “complacency” when it comes to abortion.
Young women today are complacent, Wasserman Schultz argues, because their “entire lives have been lived after Roe v. Wade was decided.” This single sentence in a much longer and broader article ignited a firestorm against the DNC chair that appears to be the last straw in a long list of grievances.
Liberal group Credo Action has called for her resignation, citing first and foremost this comment. But this is not the only sin Wasserman Schultz has committed in Liberal-Land, and Credo cites her alleged “rigging” of the Democratic primary debates to favor front-runner Hillary Clinton and a litany of other criticisms.
But it’s clear her “complacency” statement was too much to bear, and it’s worth taking a deeper look into the issue behind the remark. Complacency might be one factor for a national shift toward a more pro-life outlook; but another factor may be ambivalence.
More millennial women are conflicted over the issue of abortion today than even a decade or so ago. Millennials overall appear to be split on the abortion issue, with a 2012 Gallup polling data finding 46 percent of 18-34-year-olds calling themselves “pro-choice” and 44 percent calling themselves “pro-life.” Women overall, in this Gallup poll, were similarly split, with 44 percent saying they were “pro-choice” and 46 percent saying they were “pro-life.”
But the Gallup poll did something odd. Rather than show the breakdown of women by age groups (18-34, 35-54 and 55 and older) like they did for the overall poll results, they decided to see how women under 50 felt about abortion compared to women over 50. Women under 50 (which obviously includes non-millennials) were far more likely to call themselves “pro-choice” than “pro-life,” with 50 percent claiming the former and 39 percent claiming the latter. For women over 50, the numbers were reversed, with 55 percent calling themselves “pro-life” and 37 percent calling themselves “pro-choice.”
Gallup also found that the share of U.S. adults identifying as “pro-choice” has been trending down since the 90s, while the share of adults identifying as “pro-life” has been increasing.
Other polls, not separated out by age, have found men and women holding similar views on abortion. But Americans are more prone to feel that “abortion should be generally available,” a question asked in a 2002 Public Agenda poll and a 2009 CBS News/New York Times poll, although neither poll found more than 50 percent agreeing that abortion should be generally available.
Part of this is the result of ultrasound technology and knowing more about fetal development than we did in 1973 when Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing most abortions nationally, was decided. There is also a growing movement of pro-life women who argue that to be pro-woman is to be pro-life, especially since, globally, more females have been aborted than males.
Few experts believe Roe is going to be abolished any time soon. But the idea that young women are complacent misses the point. Most millennial women have strong feelings about abortion, but many are either conflicted about the practice or oppose it.
In any event, this idea that abortion would be the main issue to fuel young women’s enthusiasm (or lack thereof) for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy would probably not be something Democrats want to be seen crowing about in public today, even if it were true.
