Are Young People Having Less Sex Now that Roe Is Overturned?

Young people are having less sex now that the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned, a recent study by Match Group suggests. The report surveyed more than 5,000 individuals under 50 and found that one in 10 were choosing not to engage in sexual activity due to Roe.

Never mind that access to over-the-counter contraceptives is at its highest level in history, and at least 25 states allow abortion basically up to birth, young people are anxious because of what Roe’s defeat signals: the shattering of the delusion that sex doesn’t come with consequences. And while some are digging their heels even further into this delusion, at least others are being intellectually honest about what this decision means for them and their bodies by practicing abstinence.

Sex, even sex with contraception, will never be consequence free. Just ask the Gen Z women consciously abstaining from “hookup culture” because of its dehumanizing effects. Or the sex-realist feminists arguing it’s in women’s (and men’s) best interests to make sex consequential again.

It is good that the secular world is realizing the Sexual Revolution failed to deliver on its promises regarding pleasure and fulfillment. We cannot treat human beings as fungible. We cannot sever our bodies from our hearts. The corporeal will always affect the spiritual, and the spiritual the corporeal. This is what it means to be human, and to act otherwise is to dehumanize yourself and others.

While the leftists abstaining from sex for political reasons may not have come to this realization yet, it is good they recognize sex has lasting consequences. While they believe pregnancy to be the only consequence of sex without abortion, they are blind to sex’s deep emotional and spiritual effects. But here is an opportunity for conservatives to give a holistic account of what sex is and what the body is for.

Already you have younger generations saying no to casual hookups and transactional dating apps and rejecting our overtly sexualized culture. They recognize hookup culture as rightly meaningless, unfulfilling, and harmful. They know we are meant for something more. They are primed for a new (or should I say old?) cultural script regarding the body, sex, and marriage.

Now is the time for reclaiming sex for what it is: a profound and beautiful mystery that oftentimes results in children. In the proper context, the consequences of sex are radical blessings that make life better.