Those of us who believe unborn children deserve human rights can be encouraged. Though we still have many hurdles to overcome before we arrive at the place where all human life is legally protected in the United States, we can be optimistic about the end result. Here are 10 reasons why:

10. Recent Polls

A majority of Americans surveyed in a Rasmussen national poll say they believe abortion is morally wrong, a number that includes a large percentage of people who call themselves “pro-choice”. Last year, for the third consecutive time, Gallup found that more Americans accept the pro-life label, a result which led the polling firm to declare “a real change in public opinion.”

9. Abortion’s Treatment on Television and in Movies

In the “Fetal Position” episode of House, Dr. House operates on a fetus in utero. During the operation, the baby’s hand emerges weakly and grasps House’s index finger. (This scene was based on an actual occurrence.) After the operation, House calls the child a “baby” instead of a “fetus”. (See clip.)

In a 2009 episode of Law and Order (“Dignity”), a female attorney seeking justice for a murdered abortion doctor is shaken by a description of partial-birth abortion. She says, “I grew up thinking Roe v. Wade was gospel. Now… I don’t know where my freedom ends and the dignity of another being begins.”

In the recent MTV documentary on teen abortion, though clearly in favor of the pro-choice view, the producers did not mask the conflicted feelings of the teenagers. Before the young mother chooses to abort her child, she gets visibly frustrated with a Planned Parenthood counselor who tells her to not think of the fetus as a baby. “Call that thing a baby. Alright, exactly what it is. A thing…A thing can turn out like that [pointing to their first, living child]….nothing but a bunch of cells can turn out to be her.”

8. The Revulsion to Sex-Selection Abortion

The rise of sex selection abortions and the media coverage of such abortions in other parts of the world provide a stark reminder of the laxity of abortion restrictions in the United States. Sex selection abortion is not a Chinese or Indian debate. It is happening here! People all over the world were repulsed by the actions of an Australian couple who aborted twin boys because they felt entitled to replace the baby girl they lost.

Sex-selection abortion puts pro-choice advocates in a difficult position. They must defend such insanity (or only faintly protest it) if they wish to maintain their conviction that abortion can and should be provided for any cause at any time.

7. The Exposing of Planned Parenthood’s Corruption

LiveAction has video footage from five different Planned Parenthood clinics that show people posing as sex traffickers being aided in their attempts to gain medical treatment for young girls. Armed with this kind of evidence of corruption, the House voted to defund Planned Parenthood. The fact that no Planned Parenthood advocate will go head to head on television with LiveAction president Lila Rose indicates that this organization cannot and will not respond directly to the allegations of corruption.

6. Planned Parenthood’s Recent Talking Points

Planned Parenthood’s advocates have sought to redirect the discussion on abortion by pointing to all the other health care services their clinics provide for low-income women. Implicit in Planned Parenthood’s downplaying of abortion and emphasizing of other services is a stunning admission: abortion is a problem. The advocates of Planned Parenthood are seeking to cast their clinics as much more than “abortion providers.” These talking points indicate that fewer and fewer Americans can stomach the idea of “abortion as health care.”

5. Abortion as a “Tragic Choice”

On a recent episode of The View, Whoopi Goldberg explained her reason for being pro-choice: the low-income woman who already has too many children. When confronted about women who simply get abortions out of convenience, she called them “idiots.” Why does Whoopi have such a visceral reaction to abortion-for-convenience? Because she’s an inconsistent advocate of abortion rights: she recognizes that the fetus is a human being and that abortion snuffs out this life. The fact that she and others like her see abortion as a “tragic choice” implicitly speaks to the immorality of the procedure.

4. Young People

16-year-old singing sensation, Justin Bieber, was recently asked his opinion on a variety of issues. Though seeking to take a non-judgmental stance on abortion, he told Rolling Stone, “I really don’t believe in abortion… it’s like killing a baby.” Bieber is not alone. The annual “March for Life” in Washington is a sea of young faces, prompting NARAL president Nancy Keenan to worry: “There are so many of them, and they are so young.” Ironically, Bieber was castigated by Barbara Walters for answering questions inappropriate for someone of his age – even though young girls can actually receive abortions at ages younger than 16.

3. Ultrasound Technology and Pregnancy Support Centers

Ultrasound technology continues to prove what embryology textbooks and Scripture have told us all along – the unborn child is a human being. In a Washington Post editorial, Frances Kissling recently advised abortion-rights advocates to shift strategies: “We can no longer pretend the fetus is invisible,” she wrote. Meanwhile, pro-life advocates are active at the grassroots level, making sure that women make informed choices and have ample financial and emotional support during their pregnancy. Pregnancy support centers are on the front lines in the battle against abortion.

2. The Third Wave

John Ensor: “In the first wave, Catholics took the lead is declaring the inherent evil of abortion. Evangelicals then flooded in to help advance the pregnancy help movement. The Third Wave points to the victory of our movement and the downfall of abortion as a business, when Black and Hispanic Christians not only join this movement, but lead it.”

Billboards like the one above (which has subsequently been taken down) are causing controversy, but at the very least, they are prompting conversation about the racial component to abortion. YouTube videos demonstrating the racist agenda of Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, are also making the rounds – causing pro-choice advocates to reconsider their assumptions.

1. God Hears

Speak up for those who have no voice, for the justice of all who are dispossessed. Speak up, judge righteously, and defend the cause of the oppressed and the needy. (Prov. 31:8-9)

For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, showing no partiality and taking no bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. (Deut. 10:5)