[Sam the Sham]

Redrum, you've missed it.

Hypocrisy is what happens when you have clashing goods. In this case, socioeconomic self interest vs the sanctity of life.

When people have to make choices in their own lives, socioeconomic self interest generally wins. Yes, people can deplore that there are quite so many abortions. But they remember that nothing can be so disruptive of your life as an unanticipated pregnancy.

[.cnI redruM]

Here's a good suggested read if you want a good book that will interest you far beyond the discussion here. The Metaphysical Club by James Menand.

In it, he describes the decision of Oliver Wendall Holmes to volunteer to fight for the Union in the Civil War. A lot of the population in Boston were against slavery, but had no real desire to see their source of raw materials such as cotton or agriculture interrupted.

His family members and social companions all told him the war was an inconvenience and that while slavery was a bad thing, people in industry had to make a living. They told him it was one of those things, you did what you had to do to get by.

Freedom was just some abstract ideal spouted by some political radical named Frederick Douglass. The textile mills fed and clothed people. There aren't many things that will disrupt your life like massive unemployment throughout your entire town, but fortunately, the desire to abolish slavery prevailed. Even if no one in Boston really wanted to give up the fortune they were making off of the slavery of others.

Hypocrisy is a very powerful agent, that I'll grant you. But
a) It doesn't always cut one way.
b) There are times when people will rise above it and do what's right at their own expense. Particularly when that expense still remains hypothetical rather than actual.