Smoking and abortion arguably have little to do with each other, but they have something in common: According to surveys, both are held in growing disdain by youths.
“The majority of youth today do not consider it okay for people to smoke,” says a report from the Girl Scout Research Institute called “Good Intentions: The Beliefs and Values of Teens and Tweens Today.”
The report stemmed from a Harris Interactive survey of about 3,200 youths, which updated a similar survey of 5,000 youths taken for the Girl Scouts in 1989.
Both surveys asked whether it was OK to smoke “if a person finds it enjoyable.”
In 1989, 27 percent of youths said smoking was OK. Two decades later, only 18 percent approved.
This rejection of smoking also is seen in the Monitoring the Future surveys, which have tracked substance use by the nation’s youths since the mid-1970s.
In 1975, 74 percent of high school seniors told Monitoring the Future that they had smoked at least once in their lifetimes. By 2009, this fell to a record low of 44 percent. Daily smoking among 12th-graders also has tanked, falling from 27 percent in 1975 to 11 percent in 2009.
Anyone with access to a history channel can see that cigarette smoking was once ubiquitous in America.
Movie stars puffed away in scene after scene. War movies showed GIs trading cigarettes like they were gold. Millions of children made ashtrays in pottery class. “Smoke-filled rooms” were where business was conducted.
Today, smoking has been chased out of movie theaters, restaurants, workplaces, most homes and cars, and even the House of Representatives’ Speaker’s Lobby, thanks to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The heyday of Big Tobacco has passed, thanks in part to endless “don’t smoke” public health messages (plus anti-smoking laws, hefty taxes on tobacco products and penalties in insurance policies).
I think abortion is also on a downward trajectory.
In 1989, the Harris Interactive/Girl Scout survey asked youths whether it was “all right” to have an abortion “if having a baby will change your life plans in a way you find hard to live with.”
In 1989, 33 percent of youths said abortion was OK under those circumstances. By 2008, this fell to 25 percent.
This is just the latest sign that abortion views are shifting. Last year, Pew Research Center found that support for legal abortion (in “most” or “all” cases) fell below 50 percent for the first time since 2001; this move away from abortion was seen in all age groups.
Then the Gallup Poll offered the stunning finding that 51 percent of adults now identify as “pro-life,” while 42 percent say they are “pro-choice.” This is a virtual reversal of views from a few years earlier.
Data show that the heyday for abortion in America was in the 1980s. After abortion was legalized with the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, the number of abortion providers mushroomed to 2,900, according to Guttmacher Institute data. The number of abortions also rose, reaching its peak in 1990, with 1.6 million procedures.
But the trend has been generally downward since. By 2005, the number of providers was 1,787, and the number of abortions was 1.2 million, about the same as in 1977.
Both smoking and abortion remain legal, although battles remain over when, where and how these activities can be done.
I am not suggesting that smoking and abortion will become illegal, ever. But their ultimate fates — as with everything else — lie with the millennial generation, whose 78 million members (born from 1982 to 2002) outnumber the baby boomers’ 76 million.
The eldest millennials turn 28 this year, and their cultural influence is expected to be unmistakable by the end of the decade. Early bird surveys that capture their views are well worth heeding.
• Cheryl Wetzstein can be reached at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.
• Cheryl Wetzstein can be reached at cwetzstein@washingtontimes.com.
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