As someone who once toiled in the vineyards of the Democratic Party, and who associated with liberals who were just as passionately pro-life as I was, I try never to write as if the pro-life camp is devoid of "liberals." I have been reminded more than once that "standing up for the little guy" is a shorthand creed for how many liberals see their mission. So, many a time I have been instructed, "Don't write us off."

And I won't. And that's because it's no mere slogan but a truth when we say our Movement is non-partisan and trans-denominational. Politically and relationally, the Pro-Life Movement is comprised of every hue.

But, as a generalization, it is also true that, overwhelmingly, today's contemporary liberal takes a pro-abortion stand. By contrast, those who are more traditional/conservative in their outlook are much more likely to protect the next generation's right to be born.

That is why I was ambivalent about commenting on Arthur Brooks', "The Fertility Gap," which ran in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. There are pro-life liberals but their numbers are not by any means what they were in the early days of the fight over abortion.

Brooks points out the irony of an increasing outmoded axiom: Those on the "left" (liberals) believe that increasing the turnout of young people enhances their chances. This fails on two levels.

First, as we have repeatedly demonstrated using reams of polling data, more and more young people are embracing the pro-life view of life. In casting their nets to snare young people, pro-abortionists may be unknowingly hauling pro-life votes to the ballot box.

Second, not only are more youth enrolling in the pro-life army, "conservatives" who tend to be pro-life are having many more children than are "liberals" who are more likely to take up the mantle of "choice." To quote Brooks' operative paragraph, "Simply put, liberals have a big baby problem: They're not having enough of them, they haven't for a long time, and their pool of potential new voters is suffering as a result. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, if you picked 100 unrelated politically liberal adults at random, you would find that they had, between them, 147 children. If you picked 100 conservatives, you would find 208 kids. That's a "fertility gap" of 41%. Given that about 80% of people with an identifiable party preference grow up to vote the same way as their parents, this gap translates into lots more little Republicans than little Democrats to vote in future elections. Over the past 30 years this gap has not been below 20%--explaining, to a large extent, the current ineffectiveness of liberal youth voter campaigns today.

And what is really interesting, according to Brooks,  is that "The fertility gap doesn't budge when we correct for factors like age, income, education, sex, race--or even religion. Indeed, if a conservative and a liberal are identical in all these ways, the liberal will still be 19 percentage points more likely to be childless than the conservative.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek, Brooks writes, "It would appear liberals have been quite successful controlling overpopulation--in the Democratic Party.

Brooks, of course, concedes that underlying ideology is not all explanatory for political behavior. However it is not unfair for him to conclude, "But all things considered, if the Democrats continue to appeal to liberals and the Republicans to conservatives, getting out the youth vote may be increasingly an exercise in futility for the American left."

If you have any questions or comments, please send them to Dave Andrusko at dandrusko@nrlc.org