Study Shows Conservatives Twice As Likely To Value Human Life Than Liberals Are
A majority of Americans no longer see life as sacred, with liberals the least likely to view it that way.
The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found in its “American Worldview Inventory 2020” of 2,000 adults that a mere 39 percent of respondents agree with the statement that “human life is sacred.”
The dichotomy between conservatives and liberals was great, with 57 percent of conservatives agreeing that life is sacred, but only 24 percent of liberals saying so.
The group most likely to see the inherent value in human life was adults with a biblical worldview at 93 percent, followed by born-again Christians (60 percent), Republicans (53 percent), Pentecostals (46 percent), mainline Protestants (45 percent) and Catholics (43 percent).
The survey had a margin of error of plus- or minus-2 percentage points.
Some solid evidence in the difference between how conservatives and liberals view life can be seen in the positions taken by the two main political parties on the abortion issue.
The vast majority of Republican officeholders, including President Donald Trump, are pro-life, while nearly every Democrat believes abortion should be legal, with many calling for it to be lawful until the moment of birth (and even beyond in the case of Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Ralph Northam of Virginia).
National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis reported in March that Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, the last remaining stalwart pro-life Democrat in Congress, was defeated in his primary by abortion-rights advocate Marie Newman.
“It is a symbolic end to an era that really ended a long time ago, a time when Democratic politicians could vote against taxpayer-funded abortion and in favor of abortion restrictions without being ousted from their seats, and when the party’s leadership acknowledged and welcomed pro-life voters whose views on other issues aligned them with the party,” DeSanctis wrote.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden reversed his longtime opposition to taxpayer-funded abortions in June of last year, saying he now supports them.
A further interesting finding in American Worldview Inventory 2020 was the vast divide between conservatives and liberals regarding the statement, “Human beings are God’s creation, made in His image, fallen, needs redemption.”
Seventy-seven percent of conservatives affirmed the statement, while only 36 percent of liberals did.
Law and culture, of course, are downstream from what individuals believe about themselves and whether there is a God.
The founders had some very defined views on the topics, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” the most famous passage of the document reads.
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
As I chronicled in my book “We Hold These Truths,” these beliefs have guided and animated Americans throughout more than two centuries of our nation’s history.
But in more recent times, confusion and division have resulted as law and rights have been separated from their true source, God.
“The government feels free to do whatever is expedient because it is just the laws of man at stake, it believes, and laws made by man can just as easily be changed by man,” one passage in the book reads.
“Without a common faith in certain truths, everyone feels free to do what is right in his own eyes. There is no moral impetus to the law, because it is not derived from any higher authority to which the society, for the most part, assents to being true.
“A majority vote on the Supreme Court or even the legislature cannot fill this void. Those in power exercise it with increasing heavy-handedness, and they will have to keep doing so to create order in an increasingly fractured society.”
We have been seeing much evidence of this recently in the rioting, looting, killing and the pulling down of statues without any respect for the law.
“Our problem is spiritual rather than political or economic,” said Dr. George Barna, the Cultural Research Center’s director of research.
“Given the cultural challenges we are facing today, our best strategy is to collectively turn to God, humble ourselves before Him, earnestly seek His love and forgiveness, and follow His wisdom and guidance,” he added.
Salvation will ultimately come not from the government, but through a reformation in how people think about themselves and each other, centered on the knowledge that we are all God’s children and therefore our lives are sacred.
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