I know that traditionally it’s usually construed as Liberal = right to choose / Conservative = right to life, but in thinking about the more liberal and more conservative women I’ve known (well enough to know this info) over the years the conservative women have had more abortions than the liberal ones.
Is this just an oddly skewed sample or is the RTL/RTC continuum not as closely linked to politic attitudes as we believe?
It’s my theory that the socially conservative women are the ones who “need” abortion the most–they’re often the women who “need” to “sweep it under the rug” when an unplanned pregnancy comes along. However, you’re not going to get hard, honest data on that one any time soon. (I use quotes around “need” because it’s only a perceived necessity, not a real one.)
I’m mainly liberal and pretty much always vote Democrat, but I’m pro-life. I’m not anti-abortion, however, and there is a distinction. I don’t think a ban on abortion would do us any favors in eradticating the practice. I think abortion is barbaric and a terrible method of “birth control” that should be unnecessary considering the amount of preventative options that are out there. Except in cases of coercion, it’s a choice to have sex without using contraceptives, and a really stupid choice if you don’t want a child.
A while back, a conservative columnist theorized that a higher abortion rate in liberal states may have tipped the balance for Bush by leading to less liberal voters. Not sure if the theory really holds up, but the statistics might be of interest anyway.
There are definitely cases where abortion views cross the traditional party lines. I myself am a left-leaning pro-lifer who identifies more with groups like PLAGAL (for pro-life gays and lesbians) and Feminists for Life than I do with the Christian and Republican wing of the movement. I’ve certainly encountered pro-choice Republicans, by the same token, particularly among the libertarian types (who sometimes are lumped in with conservatives).
I think it is only an American thing. Eire (Southern Ireland) is quite strongly pro-life but also quite liberal in other ways. Much of Europe is both strongly Catholic and strongly socialist.
Part of your answer depends on what type(s) of life you include in “Right to life.” You’ll get a higher correlation between believers and conservatives regarding the issue of abortion than you will with artificially prolonging the life of someone like poor Terry Schiavo.
Greedy conservativism and pro-choice can mix perfectly. I’m conservative and I prefer abortion to remain legal. I don’t want to spend tax payer money fixing up babies that are doomed, if not by mom’s drug/alcoholism habits, then by the foster system.
Politically liberal pro-lifers-
Nat Hentoff
many US Catholics who vote Democrat
I think his name is Colman McCarthy- an ultra-pacifist Catholic pro-lifer vegan whose voice sounds like Joseph Lieberman
In general the one sentence descriptions of the two parties are:
Republican: Make the world a better place by everyone being good.
Democrat: Make the world a better place by being giving and selfless.
However, even with the Bible clearly stating what is “Good,” whether abortion is good or bad is still up in the air amongst even bible thumpers. So until some god from some religion comes down and clears that up, I think we can safely say that abortion can be labelled either way depending on your world view so there is no reason it couldn’t be supported by the Republican party outside of that that isn’t the common internal world view for them at the moment.
On the Democrat side… Well I don’t see how being giving or selfless includes ending a babie’s life who could have been someone to be cared for and given to, but I am the first to say that political party stances has little to do with any logic, let alone internal and could largely have been determined by a dice roll so far as I could tell (and I’m talking about both of the big two.)
I can’t really offer very much except a whiff of anecdote. But I wager you’d find many leftist or left-leaning Christians who are against legal abortions. I can attest that at least one such creature exists: my sibling E., who grew up Christian and grew into a major socialistic worldview as she became an adult. She steadfastly believes that abortion is wrong but is nevertheless the kind of person who puts “Buck Fush” stickers on the back of her car.
Certainly there are libertarians who are are for legal abortions - my username is a play on a pejorative term for a sizeable group of them, of which I was once a part. Do they count as conservative? Eh. They think homosexuality is irrational, that a hawkish United States presence in the Middle East is grand, and that one’s worth can be measured by the size of his bank account. I don’t see much of a difference.
You can’t really call Randroids conservative by any strict definition of the term. While certainly not what I’d call liberal, they are more what I call radical, as in wishing for a radical change in the way everyone perceives everything. It’s that change in perception that is what advocates certain views, not necessarily being conservative.
It depends on the conservative viewpoint, the rantings of some on the right notwithstanding. A conservative who truly believed in minimal government interference in individual rights might well conclude that a woman has the right to choose; likewise one who truly believed in states’ rights (I’m assuming you’re a USAmerican) might feel abortion is a matter within only the states’ purview.
For that matter, a liberal might feel that fetuses are persons and that the government should intervene on their behalf, the same way he or should would want the government to protect an abused child. Don’t believe those who try to paint either side of the abortion debate as monolithic.
How many potentially disabled and/or drug-addicted and/or abused children should I put you down for? Thirty-seven? I’ll put thirty-seven.
There is a difference between being personally anti-abortion and wishing to restrict abortion access to others. I know a lot of leftists who personally disagree with abortion but don’t want to make it illegal. Especially in the case of religious leftists and those of color, many of them would never get an abortion but they’re not trying to ban it. And I’ve known a lot of economic conservatives (technically libertarians) who are very much pro-choice and that’s one of the deciding reasons why they didn’t vote for Bush (or other similar anti-choice politician). There is a correlation, but it’s not as strong as you think it is.
I would consider myself a Democrat (or farther left than the current ones) on most issues except for abortion. It’s tough to have that exception but it goes toward pro-life across the board (womb to the tomb, anti-war, anti-death penalty, etc.)
I continue to vote Democrat because I don’t believe there will be substantive changes in abortion policy regardless of the leaders and I believe Republicans kill and hurt people in more other ways than Dems.
I think I am the opposite of Gigi. I am a Pro-Choice Republican. I am in favor of mandatory Birth Control Classes and minimizing Abortions that way.
I am not comfortable with the Idea of Abortions but I am less comfortable with I a male dictating what a women does in this regard.
Jim
I was thinking of this topic last Sunday while reading the editorial section of the paper. It seems to me that the people who don’t fit under a prescribed definition of, say, a pro-life Republican or a pro-choice Democrat, have been much more vocal lately. Without seeking them out, I’ve been reading more letters to the editor and otherwise hearing from more people whose personal beliefs only partially fit within the conservative/Republican or liberal/Democrat “party lines.”
Those people, such as a pro-choice Republican, for instance, have always existed, of course – and it might just be my perception that they’re being more outspoken lately – but I see this as a great thing.
Related reading: “The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion”