# Why do liberals oppose war but favour abortion while conservaties are the opposite? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 2, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889 "2005-02-02T00:26:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![WpgTriniman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a88e4f/32.png) [@WpgTriniman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WpgTriniman)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/1 "2005-02-02T00:26:40Z")
Why do liberals oppose war but favour abortion while conservaties… favour war but are opposed to abortion? Both groups are in favour of the killing of human life. ---
**Author:** ![gruver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/57b2e6/32.png) [@gruver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gruver)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/2 "2005-02-02T00:34:15Z")
i guess it’s all in how you define life. at least for us crazy liberals? i think killing a living person is deplorable. i also, don’t consider a human life. i would hazard a guess, though, that for either side it’s more about the means to an end. people that are not opposed to war think there is a good “reason” behind the killing of those people and maybe don’t consider those people innocent. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/3 "2005-02-02T00:44:29Z")
Aren’t you painting with a pretty broad brush there? I know no liberals **or** conservatives who actually think war is a good thing. The only distinction might be that conservatives tend to be somewhat more willing than liberals to resort to war. And conservatives are less likely to be outright pacifists who oppose war in all circumstances. Similarly, I know no conservatives **or** liberals who actually think abortion is a good thing. They tend to differ on whether it should be legal, simply because conservatives are more likely to believe that an embryo attains full human status and right to protection at the moment of conception, whereas liberals are more likely to believe that fetal rights change over the course of pregnancy, so that the fetus doesn’t have full human status prior to viability. Liberals are also more likely to attach greater importance to a woman’s right to control her own reproduction. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/4 "2005-02-02T00:46:57Z")
Isn’t this dichotomy usually done with Abortion and Capital Punishment, rather than War? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/5 "2005-02-02T00:47:18Z")
Oh, because we’re just a bunch of inconsitent dickheads who make trouble for the fuck of it, that’s why. Any more rhetorical questions? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/6 "2005-02-02T00:58:23Z")
What **Kimstu** said. I don’t know of any pro-choice folks who cackle with glee over the idea of terminating a pregnancy. Rather, they simply feel that the decision of whether or not to have an abortion is one that should be made by the people involved, and not by some outside group whose interest in protecting the fetus ends as soon as the child is born. As for the war thing, I don’t think conservatives as awhole enjoy the idea of going to war. But they do seem IMO to be more willing to use it, usually while dismissing attempts at diplomacy as “appeasement” and “irrelevant.” And aside from the die-hard pacifists, all the liberals I know aren’t opposed to war _per se,_ but simply give that choice the due gravity it deserves. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/7 "2005-02-02T01:08:48Z")
This question has always fascinated me. Or more broadly, why when you know one thing about a person (i.e. that he supports abortion - ‘he’ used advisedly), you can put together a pretty accurate identikit picture of him. He’ll be anti capital punishment, read _The Guardian_ (in England - _NYT_ in New York?), be a member of Amnesty International, and be a fan of the United Nations. Usually he’ll be rich, support increased spending on education and healthcare, but be opposed (at least when he’s had a few drinks) to increased taxation. American “liberals” I find more fascinating. Much more of a “No work, no eat” mentality, anti-handouts, pro-guns, and plagued by a conscience which makes them guilty about things that they shouldn’t be guilty about, conveniently allowing them to ignore systemic injustices that really matter, but which they benefit from. I’m always suspicious of anyone who is a “passionate” advocate of any people (or to broaden it, creature) of which group they don’t belong. Thus, the advocate for Tibetan rights who lives in L.A. (well, half the year, when not skiing or at their ranch) who is passionate about the Tibetans, or the English person in Hong Kong who is passionately pro-Chinese, or the male “feminist”. Those who make animals the centre of their life cause me to wonder what has happened in their relationships with their fellow humans to make them lose their centre. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/8 "2005-02-02T01:10:47Z")
Of course, because a woman’s right to make her own reproductive decisions is totally the same thing as invading a sovreign nation on a trumped-up pretense. [/sarcasm] ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/9 "2005-02-02T01:28:11Z")
Well I support war when it is justified, and I support abortion when it is justified. What my personal belief on the level of justification required in either case would probably label me a Liberal. But there is no dicotamy in my stance. ---
**Author:** ![rorty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b2d939/32.png) [@rorty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rorty)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/10 "2005-02-02T01:36:28Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > I’m always suspicious of anyone who is a “passionate” advocate of any people (or to broaden it, creature) of which group they don’t belong. Thus, the advocate for Tibetan rights who lives in L.A. (well, half the year, when not skiing or at their ranch) who is passionate about the Tibetans, or the English person in Hong Kong who is passionately pro-Chinese, or the male “feminist”. Those who make animals the centre of their life cause me to wonder what has happened in their relationships with their fellow humans to make them lose their centre. Could you elaborate on why you’re suspicious of such people? If you believe strongly in a cause, I don’t see whether or not being a member of the group the cause supports should matter at all. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/11 "2005-02-02T01:42:22Z")
**roger thornhill:** _Or more broadly, why when you know one thing about a person (i.e. that he supports abortion - ‘he’ used advisedly), you can put together a pretty accurate identikit picture of him. He’ll be anti capital punishment, read The Guardian (in England - NYT in New York?), be a member of Amnesty International, and be a fan of the United Nations._ Considering that Amnesty International itself claims only about [1.8 million members worldwide](http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-index-eng), while approximately [54% of American men](http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/abortion_poll030122.html) support legalized abortion “in all or most cases”—which makes about 100 million American men who support abortion—this attempt at correlation is clearly unfounded in fact. Similarly, the New York Times has only about [5–6 million readers total](http://oldwww.roymorgan.com/readership/usa/2001/dec/nytim.html). Your alleged “pretty accurate identikit picture” is, statistically speaking, fuller of holes than the proverbial swiss cheese. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/12 "2005-02-02T01:43:28Z")
Whoops, sorry, that’s only about 50 million American men. Nonetheless, it’s a hell of a lot more than could be accounted for by all the Amnesty International members **and** New York Times readers in the entire world. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/13 "2005-02-02T01:53:11Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > This question has always fascinated me. Or more broadly, why when you know one thing about a person (i.e. that he supports abortion - ‘he’ used advisedly), you can put together a pretty accurate identikit picture of him. I support abortion through the first two trimesters. > [@](#): > > He’ll be anti capital punishment, I’m mixed. Morally, I believe in it but I don’t think the State is smart enough to do it well enough (i.e., not get too many innocent guys) to justify it. I’m willing to be swayed. > [@](#): > > read _The Guardian_ (in England - _NYT_ in New York?), Business, crossword and metro sections, but only after I’m done with the _Journal_. Does that count? Oh, and as bad as the _Times_ can be, they ain’t no Guardian. > [@](#): > > be a member of Amnesty International, Snort! > [@](#): > > and be a fan of the United Nations. Double Snort! > [@](#): > > Usually he’ll be rich, Gimme a chance in here – I only started making real money a few years ago. > [@](#): > > support increased spending on education and healthcare, Yes on education, no on healthcare. And education locally, not federally, except to comply with federal mandates such as NCLB, which I support. > [@](#): > > but be opposed (at least when he’s had a few drinks) to increased taxation. No drinks, 10 drinks, same same. Read my lips – no new taxes! I think I’m pleased that you’re not in charge of putting together those little profiles the airlines use for screening passengers. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/14 "2005-02-02T01:59:02Z")
> [@roger thornhill](#): > > American “liberals” I find more fascinating. Much more of a “No work, no eat” mentality, anti-handouts, pro-guns, and plagued by a conscience which makes them guilty about things that they shouldn’t be guilty about, conveniently allowing them to ignore systemic injustices that really matter, but which they benefit from. Hey, we gotta make _some_ compromises to win office every so often and not just be a clot of irrelevant utopian pamphleteers. I don’t think workfare is the perfect system myself, but since '96, you support it or you get left behind on everything else. The “guilty about things that they shouldn’t be guilty about” is less a smokescreen ploy, I think, than the symbol of a party that is so deeply in eclipse at the moment that even their leading opinionmakers are having trouble seeing daylight. Liberals also have been well drilled to give equal time to the causes of every individual and group, which needless to say inhibits coalition-building. > [@](#): > > Those who make animals the centre of their life cause me to wonder what has happened in their relationships with their fellow humans to make them lose their centre. While I’m not entirely unsympathetic to the idea that animals can be friends to people who feel neglected by humans, I do see your point in view of the more militant “animal rightists,” or the volunteers one sometimes encounters at the ASPCA adoption van in large cities, the type who look like they might just eat Kibble for breakfast and are liable to break into rants about unwanted kits/pups at any opportunity. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/15 "2005-02-02T02:03:08Z")
To return to the OP, after a fashion… I see conservatives as people who think that individuals shouldn’t ever do evil, and government shouldn’t ever do good. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/16 "2005-02-02T02:27:51Z")
**roger** , I wish I had a clue how to respond to the things you’re saying. In various measures they’re inaccurate, confusing and insulting. Your mental picture of American liberals is an equally odd and by equal turns wrong, based on stereotypes, and just kinda strange. > [@](#): > > Thus, the advocate for Tibetan rights who lives in L.A. (well, half the year, when not skiing or at their ranch) who is passionate about the Tibetans, Why do you include this detail? Are you not in favor of Tibetan rights if you ski, or have enough money to go skiing? I understand what you’re doing - smearing people - but I don’t get why. As far as male feminists goes, hi, that’s me. I’ve been concerned with women’s issues for some time. Why? I’m not sure. A mix of curiosity, compassion - I think of it as common sense that people should have equal rights - and I don’t know what else. My best friend is a feminist, maybe she has something to do with it too. What am I doing to earn your suspicion? Being that equal rights for everybody is kind of a big deal for me, I’m very interested in civil rights in general. Gay rights may be the big civil rights issue of our time in America. I’m not gay, but I’m involved in this. What am I doing that is suspicious here? Is it just that I’m not minding my own business? ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/17 "2005-02-02T02:36:43Z")
> [@rorty](#): > > Could you elaborate on why you’re suspicious of such people? > > If you believe strongly in a cause, I don’t see whether or not being a member of the group the cause supports should matter at all. When I acquired my _Times Atlas of the World_ (20 odd years ago), I made notes - which I still have stuck between the pages - on two countries, as they were at the time: the USSR and Yugoslavia. I had read a bit about the latter, in particular, and the former was very much in the news at that time. The notations I made regarded the different constituent parts of the respective countries. I felt it was inevitable that someone from Georgia, for example, or Bosnia-Herzegovina, should feel stronger ties to their region than to their putative country. I turned out to be quite prescient, although millions of others probably got there before me and could have provided plenty more cites for their predictions. The prime motivating factor behind my hunch (it was little more than that) was my own deep sense of belonging as an Englishman. Bizarre, in one way, since my mother’s side is Scottish, via New Zealand, and my father’s side is Norman. But not so bizarre when one understands that a number of the world’s greatest “nationalists” have not actually belonged to the nation they felt nationalistic towards (e.g. Stalin and, to an extent, Hitler). Back in the late 60s, when I was a kid and it was unfashionable for England supporters (rugby, football, etc) to use the flag of St George, I wanted one, and I shouted and cheered and sang, even if it was only to the TV in the company of my bemused brother and father. Why did the Welsh have their dragon, the Scots their emblems, but we have this generic symbol? Even back then, I felt it was motivated by a sense of superiority and insouciance. There’s more to it than that, of course, but I have always been almost Welshman-like in terms of my “hwyl” (fire, passion, spirit)! At the same time, my irrational, emotive side has always been tempered and counterbalanced by my rational, “critical realistic”, side. Hatred is bad. Tribalism can be dangerous. Closed societies are characterised by tribalism (and mysticism), while open societies are characterised by debate, discussion, dissent, in combination with tolerance. Thus I came to determine that patriotism was good, but only when it meant a love for one’s country that flows over with respect for other countries. Nationalism, on the other hand, was bad because it was a love for one’s country that led to hatred of other countries. It was, in fact, not love at all - it was the antithesis of love. That’s why I’m suspicious. Added to the fact that my own experience (and observation, and reading for that matter) add some support to my belief that when members of a certain group champion the cause of others it is distressingly often at the expense of their own fellow members. I have seen this both with ethnic groups and with religious groups. I believe it is a kind of inverted pride, and there are not many worse flaws than pride. On preview, **Marley** , this may help you to see where I’m coming from. And don’t take me too seriously. As if you would… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/18 "2005-02-02T02:37:18Z")
**Wpg** , do you mind if I suggest that since you’re new here, you read up a little more and don’t start so many threads? Just a thought. As far as the OP goes, I’m not sure there’s anything left to add. I’m one person on the left - I guess I’m a liberal but I’m never sure - who doesn’t consider an embryo or fetus to be human life, so there’s no contradiction to me whatsoever. Other people do consider embryos and fetuses human life, but feel that people should be allowed to make their own choices, or feel that legalized abortion can be done safely and that illegal abortions are more likely to be dangerous, so it’s better to have it legal… there are any number of reasons. Almost nobody “favors abortion,” but “opposes war” is even more overbroad than “opposes abortion.” The number of actual pacifists out there is much smaller than the number of people who might be against any particular war. Just like the number of people who think any individual war is necessary or good is definitely going to be bigger than the number of people who think “war is great!” (I’m assuming there _are_ some out there.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/19 "2005-02-02T03:32:25Z")
> [@](#): > > American “liberals” I find more fascinating. Much more of a “No work, no eat” mentality, anti-handouts, pro-guns As a Briton, it’s understandable you’re missing some of the nuances of the American political spectrum. But in this case, you’re missing them by a mile (or a kilometer as the case may be). “No work, no eat, anti-handouts, and pro-guns” are all considered conservative positions in the US. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2005, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889/20 "2005-02-02T03:59:46Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > As a Briton, it’s understandable you’re missing some of the nuances of the American political spectrum. But in this case, you’re missing them by a mile (or a kilometer as the case may be). “No work, no eat, anti-handouts, and pro-guns” are all considered conservative positions in the US. I was either being too subtle or you have just misunderstood me. I was comparing American liberals to British liberals. The contrast is between British liberals (who by implication are pro welfare, pro handouts and anti-gun - what I’m painting as the prototypical “lefty” position) - and American liberals, who, will be pro-abortion, anti DP and pro UN (like their British counterparts), BUT also anti welfare, anti handouts and pro-gun. I’m still imperial - we have that in common! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-liberals-oppose-war-but-favour-abortion-while-conservaties-are-the-opposite/287889.md?page=2)