Long term, there have been very durable gains in pro-life sentiment. Gallup polls conducted in 1995 and 1996 indicated that less than 37 percent of Americans identified as “pro-life.” When the results from Gallup polls conducted between 1995 and 2009 are averaged, “pro-choice” outpolled “pro-life” by six points. However, over the past decade, the pro-life position has reached parity with the pro-choice position. The 14 polls Gallup has conducted on this issue since 2010 show that an average 47 percent of Americans identify as pro-life, and an average 47 percent identify as “pro-choice.”
As clearly as I can make out the numbers, there are less than a fifth of Americans in the "ban all abortions" or "ban no abortions" camp. The rest of the country is in the middle somewhere (including me, as you know from reading my philosophical account of it from the other day). How you phrase the question can lead to a 70% figure on either side of the issue, but that's illusory. For the most part Americans want to restrict abortion somewhat but not entirely, and differ about just where the line should be.
9 comments:
I continue to believe "Roe" has been misrepresented. The whole invention of "trimesters" from Roe is an attempt to get to allow Texas to differ from California or Utah from New York. UNTIL 12 (or 14 or thereabouts) weeks, the mother's needs can't be infringed. After 24 (or 28, or whatever) the babies' life CAN be privileged. And between 12 and 28 weeks difference jurisdictions will regulate differently.
It was the CASEY decision that put "the needs of the mother" and "a woman's rights" always and everywhere ahead of the baby's. And a super-majority of voters don't agree that a recognizably human baby, though in the womb, should be deprived of protections for frivolous reasons. What reasons are NOT frivolous? Well, let different jurisdictions debate that question.
We have a big problem in America today with **abuse of authority**....whether it is teachers using 'their' classrooms to promote there ideologies, or corporate executives using 'their' companies to promote their personal political views. It's not *their* classroom, and unless it's a private company of which they are 100% owners, it's not *their* company, either.
You are correct that phrasing matters, and that a large group favors some restrictions while still allowing some abortions. I have heard numbers all over the map on that, from 15% purist on each side with 70% along a continuum of restrictions to a 30-40-30 split. I'm not sure anyone knows the real numbers anymore.
If Roe is overturned there will be a flurry of introduced legislation - I imagine there are special interest groups already prepared for this and legislators they know think along their lines. Then things will be passed with some of them vetoed, and others challenged and rechallenged for a while. Some groups will try comprehensive directives, others will take a piecemeal approach. Governors will handle things well or they won't. It will change the election landscapes for quite a while. It will keep lawyers and nonprofits in funds for at least a decade. In the end, most states will allow some abortions and will have some restrictions. These will vary, but late-term and parental notification are likely to be the most common.
People say they support Roe in polls because they have no idea what it says and associate it generally with the idea that some kind of abortions will be allowed. If you ask them more specifically whether they support unrestricted abortion in the first, second, or trimester, you find that few oppose it in the first, many get queasy in the second depending on whether it's truly a question of threat to the mother's health (not subjective happiness), and most oppose abortion under any but the most extreme circumstances in the third.
The pro-abortion lobby has talked itself into believing it has the country on its side. All it really has on its side is opposition to the most unqualified anti-abortion position, the one that used to be associated with Catholics.
If we send the issue back to the states, these positions will clarify.
https://padreperegrino.org/?powerpress_pinw=17284-podcast
Re-cap of a conversation outside Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.
Greg
The Case Against Abortion
The most comprehensive and accessible abortion education in the world.
https://abort73.com/abortion/
Indifference is deadly.
Greg
I'd be very curious to see how many people have actually read Griswold v. CT, Roe v. Wade, and Planned Parenthood V. Casey. I've studied two, Griswold and Roe, for Constitutional History classes. They don't say what a lot of people think they say.
LittleRed1
I've had many online conversations in the last week with people who are completely unaware that 50 states can make 50 different laws, according to what their voters favor, and that the only ground for requiring them to be nationally uniform is in the Constitution. If the Constitution grants the feds the power, they may enact a nationwide uniform law. if the Constitution grants an individual a right, the S. Ct. may overturn a state or federal law.
"But that would mean that my rights depended on what state I lived in!" Yes.
Hearing this information, they uniformly protested, but it doesn't matter what the majority wants, if it goes against my rights! Well, sure, but it's the S. Ct. that says what your Constitutional rights are, at least as a practical matter affecting what the cops will prevent your doing. That's why overturning Roe v. Wade is a big deal; the S. Ct. would no longer be saying you have a Constitutional right to abortion that no state law can infringe on. "But that would be a tyranny of the majority!" It's as if it were occurring to them for the first time--and they're not at all aware of any instances in which they and their allies had previously imposed a tyranny of the majority.
Nor are they aware that "the law should be whatever I feel is right" is a standard that doesn't scale up and doesn't prevent tyranny.
Not to mention the fact that, until quite recently, the furor tended to be about the danger of the tyranny of the minority: the unfair Electoral College, the filibuster, the elites, etc.
It's the tyranny of the majority AND the minority, depending on which one of them happens to be in.
Post a Comment