Opinion | Christian Doomsayers Have Lost It

Clinics performed about 862,000 abortions in 2017 — the latest year for which data is available — the lowest number since 1974, when about 898,000 abortions were performed. Late last month the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which collects abortion-related data somewhat differently from the Guttmacher Institute, reported that the number of abortions in the United States in 2016 dropped to about 623,000, the lowest number since 1973.

The number of abortions started to drop right before Bill Clinton was first elected president; it has dropped steadily since. It’s worth noting that during the years between 1992 and 2017, it was Democrats who dominated control of the White House, the second Bush presidency notwithstanding, and therefore more liberal than conservative justices were seated on the Supreme Court — and still, the number and rate of abortions dropped. In fact, the total number of abortions dropped during 15 of the 16 years of the Clinton and Obama presidencies. (It dropped most years during the George W. Bush presidency as well.)

Set aside for now cause and effect. The reasons for the decrease in abortions are undoubtedly varied; they most likely include increased use of contraceptives, widespread use of sonograms, state laws that protect the unborn and other factors. My point is that culture and human behavior are complicated; making direct link, as many religious conservatives do, between who is president, who is on the Supreme Court and the prevalence of abortions in America can be a mistake.

Abortion is hardly the only area where social progress has been made. We’re seeing encouraging trends in the behavior of young people, too. For example, the teenage birthrate in the United States is also at a record low. According to the C.D.C., in 2017 the percentage of high school students who reported that they had ever had sex was the lowest level since the C.D.C. began conducting the survey in 1991. The percentage of students who said they had used select illicit drugs declined to 14 percent in 2017 from 22.6 percent in 2007.

Among high school seniors, we’re seeing the lowest levels of alcohol use and drunkenness ever recorded. As for violent crime, we have seen stunning improvement, with the rates having plunged since the early 1990s (although there has been a slight uptick in recent years). And in 2018 the divorce rate reached a 40-year low.

So whether we’re talking about the number and rates of abortions; teenage abortions, pregnancies and births; teenage sexual activity, drinking alcohol or marijuana use; or violent crime and divorce rates, we’re seeing the news getting better over the past five years or more, in some cases at a pace that once would have seemed unimaginable.

Of course, for many socially conservative Christians, areas of real concern remain. Though the number and rate of abortions have been notably reduced, they still remain disturbingly high for those who hold anti-abortion views, while Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land. Today nearly 40 percent of children are born to unmarried mothers. Pornography is ubiquitous in our society, and we face an opioid epidemic and an alarming increase in teenage suicides.