What should be our #1 priority?

Jill Stanek just closed a poll on the question “What needs to happen first for the pro-life movement to acheive its goal of stopping abortion?” I thought the results were pretty interesting.

The most popular answer, by far, was “Change public opinion on abortion,” at 36.6%. My own pick was “Get more media supporting the pro-life message,” because I see that as a prerequisite to changing public opinion (remember, the question is what must happen first). But only 6.1% agreed with me. Another closely related answer, “Change the image of the pro-life movement,” came in at 10.1%.

The second-place finisher was “Get more people praying to end abortion,” with 21.1%. Jill says she finds this “troubling,” while commenter Tony says “What would be troublesome is if the entire pro-life movement was made up only of Christians.” As for me: I have nothing at all against prayer, but if praying for an end to abortion is step #1, then we must already be at step #2, because there are already lots of people praying for an end to abortion (see, e.g., 40 Days for Life).

Coming in third was “Stop funding the abortion industry” at 11.8%. This may be due to the recent push to defund Planned Parenthood; would this have even been an option on the poll if it were conducted two years ago? Interestingly, only 1.5% chose “Close more abortion mills.” Perhaps they think that if closures come first– without a change in public opinion– there will be a backlash and the pro-life victory would be temporary. There may be something to that.

Relatively few voters (3.6%) went with “Open more pregnancy resource centers.” This may have to do with how the poll was worded; plenty of PRCs exist, and rather than building more, it’s probably better to focus our resources on improving those that already exist. 1.9% voted for “Get more people healed,” which I assume refers to post-abortion recovery.

Finally, I was surprised to see little interest in the political approach: 3.6% for “Reduce the power of the courts” and 3.6% for “Register more voters and elect more pro-life candidates.”