A poll that I saw this week said that 65% of those polled wanted a justice appointed to replace O’Connor who would not overturn RvW. That number was 47% for Republicans, vs. 46% who did want a justice who would overturn it.
This is why Bush is between a rock and a hard place with the nomination. He is obligated to his base to put a reliable conservative activist (particularly on abortion) on the bench, and if he shows the least bit of compromise on the subject, we’ll see the same reaction we saw when Jeb didn’t send the National Guard in after Terri Schiavo.
At the same time, it’s not a politically popular move, and he might find a lot of the more moderate GOP Senators won’t be willing to go to the mat with him.
As for the OP, I don’t think it’s worth “letting go of Roe”, nor do I think it’s worth seeking any middle ground on, because while there are restrictions that I and many people would be willing to see placed on abortion by way of a compromise, the anti-abortion-rights activists will see any compromise as nothing more than a step in their direction.
beagledave, what you are refusing to face is the great number and consistency of opinion surveys showing that Americans back abortion rights, even if some of them favor greater restrictions or are personally opposed to abortion under various circumstances.
Your Zogby poll stands out because it is such an outlier and contrary to the great weight of other polling evidence. While I’m sure it is comforting for the anti-abortion rights forces to be able to find supporting polling evidence in rare cases if the questions are framed just so, if they really valued public opinion (and paid attention to it) they would have given up their quest to ban abortion long ago.
I am impressed though, by that fragmentary reference to a purported N.Y. Times article on phrasing of polling questions. True, it would appear more solid if there was a link to the entire article, or if it didn’t appear on the same page with a link promising to reveal the identity of the Beast of Revelation (Ted Kennedy? George Soros?).
Your desperation for supporting evidence, any evidence at all, is leading you into strange waters indeed. :dubious:
I am not a liberal (but do now consider myself very very reluctantly pro choice) but would really like to get my $0.02 in, since I am sure that someone else out there might share my humble O.
I personally feel that RvW is not in any way protected by the cONSTITUTION AND it is just a very wrong decision. It seems to me that people who support RvW conveniently ignore this and are satisfied on going along with it because it supports their POV. In order for the pro choice camp to really prevail I really think they must abandon RvW and go for a more honest approach. I do understand how they cling to RvW, but it seems to me that they are clinging to a ship that must sink.
The present situation, superficially a delight to social conservatives, is a great example of the old saying, “Be careful what you ask for, for you will surely get it.” I am sure the Bush personally wants to install a judge or three that would be personally inclined to overturn Roe v. Wade, but as I and others have already pointed out, that path lies fraught with peril for Republicans and conservatives generally. Rove in particular, being a political strategist, must realize that overturning Roe v. Wade would give a huge groundswell of support to the cause of Democrats and progressives, one that would probably turn quite a few red states blue. The Pubbies might wind up with nothing but the South and some seriously underpopulated Western states. It’s a prospect that probably has him bending Bush’s ear in the direction of moderation.
I suspect Bush would personally like to appoint some real hard-line anti-abortionists to the Court. So it all comes down to the evangelical leaders who run the Republican religious right. I suspect they are politically sophisticated enough to know that although overturning Roe v. Wade will give them great cred with their supporters, it will also rouse up the sleeping dragon of the mainstream and leave them with little or no political clout. So they may well be inclined to tell Bush to ease off, go for a moderate to keep themselves in power along with the Pubbies.
Frankly, I don’t think they will take this course. Their followers know they have every advantage right now and that this is the moment to set things in motion to overturn Roe v. Wade. Any failures along these lines will not be easily forgiven, even by the very unintelligent and gullible people who make up the bulk of their supporters. The Republican leaders and the evangelicals have chosen to ride this tiger, and being atop it, they have to ride it even though it is taking them somewhere they have no wish to go.
I’m not refusing to face anything. I said that if you ask people “Do you want to overturn Roe”, a majority of Americans would say no. What I ALSO said is that is not a complete picture. I do like how you say that only SOME Americans favor greater restrictions. Even the poll that Saltean (you know, that pro choice guy from the Salon piece) refers to says that ONLY 22% of Americans would favor NO restrictions. I guess 78% equals “some Americans” in the Jackmannii lexicon. :dubious:
Ahh dismissing as an “outlier” a poll that focused on the specific instances of the hard cases, huh? Nice.
apparently you’re ALSO ignoring the CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. Jan. 10-12, 2003. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3. from your own linked site?
Notice that for the HARD cases (which represent less than 5% of all abortions), you get support for abortion rights 76-85%? Notice what the rate is for "“When the woman or family cannot afford to raise the child”? 35% legal, 65% ILLEGAL. I’m gonna go WAY out on a limb and suggest that the trend indicates if the reason is something OTHER than those kinds of reason, the percentages are even more dramatic in terms of wanting abortions illegal.
Is than an “outlier” as well?
(And of course the next paragraph discusses restrictions…
“A law requiring doctors to inform patients about alternatives to abortion before performing the procedure”
88% favor 11% oppose 88% = “some Americans I guess”
“A law requiring women seeking abortions to wait 24 hours before having the procedure done”
78% favor 19% oppose 78% = “some Americans” I guess
“A law requiring women under 18 to get parental consent for any abortion”
73% favor 24% oppose 73% = “some Americans” I guess
“A law requiring that the husband of a married woman be notified if she decides to have an abortion”
72% favor 26% oppose 72% = “some Americans” I guess
So. When you break down the reasons for abortions, you get a different picture of the kind of “support” that Americans have for abortion rights.
I agree. So I withdraw that cite from my point. A quick Google search is not helping me to find the original article (which seems to date from 1998), so I withdraw it.
Instead, by way of explaining “some” of the polling discrepency…I’ll point out this piece by David Shaw, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the L.A. Times. This series from 1990 (which unfortunately predates the LA Times archives), discusses media bias in coverage of the abortion issue. I would argue that the bias influences the kinds of questions that are used in the polling. For example, when you frame a question using the exact NARAL phrasing…“The choice on abortion should be left up to the woman and her doctor”…one wonders about the objectivity.
I feel comfortable using the CNN/USA poll, Zogby poll and the poll that William Saletan refers to, to support my initial thesis that saying “…most Americans want to keep abortion legal” is simplistic. But hey, for shits and giggles…lets try this on for size as well.
In the interest of providing even MORE data points on the problem of abortion polling, and making simplistic claims about the results. And again, for the record…BOTH sides do this sort of thing, and I generally call pro lifers on the carpet when I see them do it as well.
I’m a liberal (and a Democrat…) and I would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned.
I’m pro-choice, but I think that the decision in Roe v. Wade is a legitimate example of “judicial activism,” and I’d like to see it overturned for ideological reasons. Let’s deal with abortion laws in our legislatures.
More pragmatically, I’d like to see Roe v. Wade overturned because I think abortion would become a state issue again, and this would allow the Democratic parties in individual states to tailor their abortion platform to the residents of that state. States where a pro-life Democratic party would get more votes can have a pro-life Democratic party, and states where a pro-choice Democratic party would get more votes can have a pro-choice Democratic party.
There’s a lot of merit in this, even though we’ve mostly learned to live with Roe v Wade over the last 30 years. It would be a tumultuous time getting the legisation in place, but it sure would be nice to be able to have a SCOTUS justice approval process that didn’t drag out abortion everytime and set the two camps at each others’ throats.
Imgine if Roe v Wade had not been decided as it was. Presumably we would’ve worked out a legislative solution long ago, with maybe a few states holding out trying to keep abortion illegal. But I don’t see how they could survive in a sea of abortion friendly states.
It’s amazing how you skipped and danced through all those polls on pollingreport.com that rebuffed your claims, to trumpet an answer to one question in one poll that you think supports your position. Did you, by any chance, read the answers to all the other related questions in that particular poll? Every single one demonstrated support by a wide margin for every other possible reason cited for getting an abortion - risk to life of the mother, risk to physical health of the mother, risk to mental health of the mother, serious birth defects etc etc. The only case in which people were willing to oppose abortion rights was if it involved not being able to afford raising a child (the sort of con-veeenience argument that is dear to the heart of the anti-abortion rights crowd).
What someone honestly desiring to know the state of public opinion on abortion rights would gain from that link is the knowledge that 1) the public does not want to jettison Roe, and that while Americans’ personal opinions are rather narrowly pro-abortion rights, the existence of stronger majorities in favor of legalized abortion signal that they are not willing to inflict their moral positions on others who face difficult choices.
It’s amazing how one can cherry-pick a line here or there to try to demonstrate support, while blandly explaining that uncomfortably contrary results are a result of biased questions.
This study is a further indication that public support for abortion rights has not changed significantly in recent years.
“If you pose the straight-up, two-sided question, pro or con, the consistent result is about 55 percent favoring abortion rights,” said Shaw. “That is the single best indicator of the opinion, and it hasn’t changed much during the past decade, despite considerable uproar on the issue. That tells me that people are pretty settled on their basic opinion on the question.”
…“If you indicate that the woman wants an abortion because she has too many children, then support for abortion rights falls to as low as 25 percent,” says Shaw. “But if you mention things like the woman’s health or, particularly, danger to the woman’s life, you can move support up to 80 or 85 percent.”
Shaw says that his examination of the surveys also show that people discern between their feelings about the morality of abortion versus their support for legal proscriptions.
“If you ask people whether abortion is morally wrong, a majority will say yes,” Shaw says. “At the same time, a majority will want it to be legal. So some portion of those people who say abortion is morally wrong are essentially flipping on the second question.”
“Then, if you go a step further and ask about an amendment to the Constitution to prohibit abortion, an even stronger percentage of people will express opposition to that suggestion. This indicates that people are willing to tolerate other people doing things that are, in their view, morally wrong and are, therefore, willing to allow the practice to be legal.”
As to the survey conducted on behalf of Faye Wattleton’s group - yes, that particular result is surprising, and if such a trend were to be confirmed by further data could be significant in political terms. For now, it is outweighed by the vast stream of data going in the other direction. And to “go out on a limb”, I predict that any such slackening in conviction that abortion rights must be upheld will be reversed the day the U.S. Supreme Court “jettisons” Roe.
If your point it that peoples attitudes about abortions depend on the circumstances surrounding the abortion…welcome to the club. I didn’t “skip” anything. The Zogby poll I referenced earlier, for example…ALSO points out that support for legal abortion for “hard cases” is higher than for other cases. Of course those “hard cases”
constitute a relatively small percentage of abortions…so thanks for making my point.
Hey…howzabout yet ANOTHER cite (that I guess will also be dismissed as an outlier)
Again…if a general “Do you want to overturn Roe” or “Should abortion remain legal” question is asked, there is a majority that would side with pro choice folks. HOWEVER, if you frame the issue differently (or ask different kinds of questions that are more specific)…the picture changes.
Why is that relevant?..As the piece points out
So if you ask Americans if they favor legal abortions for the most common reasons…the picture changes significantly.
I agree that a majority of Americans, when asked, do not favor “overturning Roe”…when the question is framed that way.
Are you serious? Americans have NO problem imposing waiting periods (by large margins), requiring parental or spousal notification and other restrictions. The debates I’ve been in on these boards always have pro choice folks describing those actions as “inflicting their moral positions”. And of course (as I pointed out earlier in this post in the ABC news poll) a majority of Americans have no problem (in polling anyway) “inflicting a moral position” in many abortions : "However, 57 percent oppose abortion solely to end an unwanted pregnancy — “if the mother is unmarried and does not want the baby.”
Wow. You’re accusing ME of cherry picking results to match what I’m comfortable with?
Let’s see
– Zogby poll?.dismissed as an outlier
– Wattleton poll?. “outweighed by the vast stream of data going in the other direction”
– Poll cited by Saletan that less than %25 of Americans feel that abortion should be “generally available”? Ignored
– Piece from here about the problems with abortion polling? Ignored
– Piece from here about why abortion polls are often inaccurate? Ignored.
Pot. Kettle. Black, dude.
Beagledave, you keep talking about the “mere” 22% who want unlimited abortions, but the same survey that you keep citing shows that only 11% want no abortion.
So most of America lies somewhere in the middle, wanting some but not all abortions (66%). The fact is, both extremes are less populous than the middle, and the pro choice extreme is twice as large as the pro life extreme. This shows that most of America wants some form of abortion (89%).
Of course, this includes the only rape and incest people, who can hardly be considered allies in the fight to keep abortion legal. On the other hand, it is easy to see how many people who support choice would be hesitant to support unfettered willy nilly abortions.
Oh no. Just the response to every other question in that portion of the poll that happened to refute your claims.
Amazing.
Hardly.
We know that anti-abortion rights zealots love to claim that women almost always get abortions for “convenience”. I see you are among that number. One would have to play major games with the data to prove that just 5% of abortions are done because of other reasons, including threats to the physical and mental health of the mother, contraceptive failure, severe birth defects, rape, incest etc. - as opposed to mere “conveeenience”.
Hey - did you miss the part about 57% of those polled wanting abortion to remain available in all or most cases? The same majority that’s been around for years?
Yep.
If a vast number of studies and polling data conducting over the years shows continual broad support for abortion rights, and you cling desperately to a small number of outliers, you are cherry-picking, distorting the data and indulging in wishful thinking.
If you are really interested in the significance of the “Wattleton poll” and not just frantically serving up whatever scattered tidbits you can find to support your claims, consider this study, which confirms the interesting finding that of women presenting for an abortion, a surprising number consider themselves anti-abortion rights.
You see, it’s those other women who want abortions for the “wrong” reasons.
One wonders, if abortion rights are facing an imminent threat, just how hardcore those antichoice views will really be.
Actually I think your OP misses the point of why some liberals/Democrats are talking about letting go of RvW. Most opinions I read on the subject don’t say that they’re willing to let go of the abortion issue… just that they’ve drawn 2 conclusions from close analysis of the issue:
Roe v Wade is a somewhat flawed decision, vulnerable to being overturned, and it would be irresponsible to let the right to abortion depend on it
That in the modern US, abortion rights could survive the loss of RvW
I’m not saying those 2 precepts are true. But if they are, then the Democrats would be foolish to have a bloodbath over judiciary issues around RvW. I guess it is hard to get around the perception that RvW is the only thing standing between women and coathanger abortions… the reality is a bit more complex than that.
Which claim exactly do you think Dave is defending? He has granted right out of the gate that a simple vanilla question about overturning Roe, or a “Do you think abortions should be made illegal?,” would have a majority “against” response. So to keep pointing to a variety of sources that bear that out does not at all refute his claim, nor does it create a position he needs to defend. The point he is making does not rely on this–in fact, he concedes this.
I think Dave has amply made his case. The “No abortion, not for any reason” camp and the “Abortion on demand, any time, for any reason, with no restrictions” contigency are minorities in this country, I would wager, and there are polls that bear this out. Most people are somewhere in the middle. Abortion rights are a much stickier notion, much less straightforward than the response to a “Should abortion be legal?” question suggests. People’s feelings on this issue are just not as black and white as you very much want them to be.
I think that ** Jackmannii** is under the mistaken impression that I’m looking for any polls that will point out “See see everyone…Americans are really pro life!”
Of course, I’m not.
Since this isn’t even the OP of this thread, I guess I’m not real interested in playing poll wars.
Jackmannii feels comfortable in blanket statements like “Most Americans want to keep abortion legal”.
I think I’ve made the case that the picture is more complicated than that. I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Uh-huh. I can’t imagine what gave us that impression. :rolleyes:
If right off the bat you start feeding us misleading poll information designed to promote unease on the “left” about continuing to back Roe, you should expect it to be pointed out that the vast majority of opinion surveys do not suggest that leftists/Dems would benefit politically by “letting go of Roe”.
The polling stuff is a sideshow, but I think it’s been made clear to you that the real political fallout to be anticipated over abortion rights in the near term is what faces the GOP (if a new hardcore anti-abortion rights Supreme Court Justice helps overturn Roe).
And if that makes you uncomfortable, don’t refer to a poll that demonstrates just that.
Face it, it’s impossible to keep side issues from entering into a an abortion debate when the OP explicitly invokes them. If this bugs you, stick to the main question and don’t attempt to slide dubious “facts” (about support for abortion rights and why women seek abortions) into the equation.
and suggest that the trend indicates if the reason is something OTHER than those kinds of reason, the percentages are even more dramatic in terms of wanting abortions illegal.