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NBC/WSJ poll: For first time, majority thinks abortion should be legal in all or most cases
Hotair ^ | 01/22/2013 | AllahPundit

Posted on 01/22/2013 8:23:39 AM PST by SeekAndFind

If you're hung over from drinking the blues away on Inauguration Day, bad news: It's time to open another beer. New numbers on the 40th anniversary of Roe:

According to the poll, 54 percent of adults say that abortion should be legal either always or most of the time, while a combined 44 percent said it should be illegal – either with or without exceptions...

In addition, a whopping 70 percent of Americans oppose the Roe v. Wade decision from being overturned, including 57 percent who feel strongly about this...

By comparison, just 24 percent now want the Roe v. Wade decision overturned, including 21 percent who feel strongly about this position.

Much of this change, the NBC/WSJ pollsters say, is coming from African Americans, Latinos and women without college degrees --- all of whom increasingly oppose the Supreme Court decision from being overturned.

Before today the highest number NBC/WSJ had recorded for keeping abortion legal in all or most cases was 49 percent in 2008. When you drill down into that data, you find that the number who want abortion legal in all cases — no exceptions, presumably not even for late term — is 31 percent, which is also a new high. Say this for Obama’s new coalition — they elected the right guy.

As for overturning Roe, despite the sturm and drang of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Americans have never been keen on doing so. Pew’s recent poll on abortion found 63 percent opposed to the idea; in 1992, the number was 60 percent. NBC/WSJ sees a bit more movement over time but support for the status quo has been constant through the years in their data too:

Why the recent uptick? NBC’s pollsters speculate it's partly a backlash to the Akin/Mourdock rape comments last year, but I don’t know. My sense is that backlashes like that tend to burn out fairly quickly. Obama won and Akin and Mourdock both lost, so the “threat” of a post-Roe world has passed for abortion supporters. I think the likelier explanation, as noted in the excerpt, is changing demographics. Pew published a set of polls a few weeks after the election showing that the 18-to-29 group that got Obama reelected was also the age demographic most supportive of keeping abortion legal in all or most cases. They were also far more likely — 14 points more likely — than any other age group to say that government should do more than that government is doing too much. Imagine their surprise when they find out America can’t pay for the government it has right now.

Now that you’ve digested those numbers, try to digest this one. Exit question: Do these numbers augur the eventual end of SCOTUS confirmation fights over Roe? A newly elected Republican president would be caught between social conservatives in his base, who want the decision overturned, and pretty much the entire rest of the electorate, which doesn’t. Makes me wonder if GOP candidates won’t start veering away from the idea of getting rid of Roe via new appointments and pushing the idea of a Human Life Amendment instead. They could sell it is a true democratic solution, the way the Founders intended, knowing all the while that it hasn’t a prayer of passing.

Update: Almost forgot: If you believe Pew, a majority of the 18-to-29 group that’s now steering the ship of state and that strongly opposes overturning Roe doesn’t know which issue Roe v. Wade actually dealt with.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: 2013polls; abortion; anniversary; msmlies; proaborts; prolife
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To: jboot

I dunno what else to tell you. It’s never going to be illegal again. I mean, you can hope it will be, but I think everyone knows it can be at best left to states. And even that will be nearly impossible.


41 posted on 01/22/2013 9:13:13 AM PST by Monty22002
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To: usual suspect
Show the picture of the baby in the womb and then poll the question; is it all right to kill this child?

BTTT! Damn straight!

42 posted on 01/22/2013 9:16:12 AM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: SeekAndFind

So what? Obama just eliminated the “right to privacy” between a doctor and patient with the stroke of a pen. His Executive Actions, which were applauded by the pro-murder cult members, overturned Roe!\

Now that we no longer have a “right to privacy” between a doctor and patient, and now that we also have the legal means to set up a 15 member board to decide what “procedures” are allowed, then it is easy to no longer allow abortions and to then prosecute any participant in that disallowed procedure!

They have made the state all powerful, so we might as well use their tools against them.


43 posted on 01/22/2013 9:16:47 AM PST by CSM (Keeper of the Dave Ramsey Ping list. FReepmail me if you want your beeber stuned.)
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To: Monty22002
Your state argument is a non-starter. It is not possible to make abortion a state issue without overturning Roe. Roe was what nationalized the issue in the first place.

So the choices are give up or leave, eh?

44 posted on 01/22/2013 9:22:53 AM PST by jboot (This isn't your father's America. Stay safe and keep your powder dry.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Shaking my head..........


45 posted on 01/22/2013 9:23:40 AM PST by rrrod (at home in Medellin Colombia)
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To: Mr. Lucky

First is that Akun and Murdoch really didn’t address abortion it was comments about rape. That said they can take as much credit for this poll as any hag on Emily’s list. Their misogynistic and factually untrue statements were used against us. They gave the enemy the rope.


46 posted on 01/22/2013 9:23:45 AM PST by Blackirish (Forward Comrades!!!!!!!!!)
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To: Monty22002

> I say move to a country that bans

It’s still illegal in Brazil.

The warm weather is beginning to appeal to me more.

It’s run by Marxists, but they’re not stupid Marxists like ours. Brazilian Marxists have no problem with drilling for oil anywhere they find it.


47 posted on 01/22/2013 9:24:15 AM PST by Westbrook (Children do not divide your love, they multiply it.)
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To: Cowboy Bob
Conservatives don’t abort their children. Liberals do. Why should we stop them?

For those who truly believe we are in a war with the left - a real war that will cost many lives, there is horrible truth to your point.

48 posted on 01/22/2013 9:25:02 AM PST by Longbow1969
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To: jboot

For it to be legalized it would have to be more popular than ever with a more conservative government than we had during Bush/GOP congress. I don’t see that combination happening again much, and if so just barely.

Honestly, if it were one of my absolute issues that I couldn’t live around, I’d certainly leave over this one. It’s not going to change anytime soon. I think everyone knows that.


49 posted on 01/22/2013 9:31:12 AM PST by Monty22002
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To: varmintman
the GOP has no other safe assumption than that it needs to leave the abortion issue alone.

Can we really do that though? Where does it end? Imagine if the GOP completely gave up on the social issues (which I think is the direction they are going). In New York they are talking about lifting the restrictions on 3rd trimester abortions. Can Republicans sit on the sidelines for that?

50 posted on 01/22/2013 9:34:37 AM PST by Longbow1969
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To: Cowboy Bob
Conservatives don’t abort their children. Liberals do. Why should we stop them?

If abortion had been illegal all this time and all those babies born, Obama would have beaten McCain & Romeny by 60%+ and he would have been following an eight year Gore Presidency

51 posted on 01/22/2013 9:37:42 AM PST by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: svcw
The fact of the matter is that the Republicans were outmaneuvered and outflanked on every social issue: taxes, healthcare, abortion, etc.

For Cripe's sake, the Dems were running anti-Akin ads in congressional disctricts. In Illinois. That they had locked-up.

It is the height of inside-the-bubble thinking to think anyone thought Romney was as lib as Obama. The only people who thought so were Republicans themselves.

52 posted on 01/22/2013 9:38:35 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: SeekAndFind; onyx
Like we needed another reason to be depressed....

:-)

53 posted on 01/22/2013 9:40:06 AM PST by Lakeshark (!)
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To: Lakeshark

Low information voters. Or to be blunt, idiots.


54 posted on 01/22/2013 9:41:25 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz (I own a weapon to protect my family from those wanting to take that weapon away.)
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To: Cowboy Bob
Conservatives don’t abort their children. Liberals do. Why should we stop them?

Two reasons:

1) It is a definite eventuality that they will demand that WE pay for their abortions (already happening.)

2) Ask any current-day conservatives who were born to liberal parents but saw the light.

55 posted on 01/22/2013 9:42:20 AM PST by fwdude ( You cannot compromise with that which you must defeat.)
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To: Monty22002

Here we go...the push to drop all social issues.

You GOP cowards can cave to the murder crowd all you like. “Evolve” on abortion, sodomite marriage, amnesty...all of it, if you must. You will win your elections without me.

Obama and his minions sicken me. People who know better, yet throw out their principles and what they KNOW to be right in order to go along, make me want to projectile vomit.


56 posted on 01/22/2013 9:55:22 AM PST by CatherineofAragon (Support Christian white males---the architects of the jewel known as Western Civilization)
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To: Monty22002
When the left has an issue that they "can't live around" (and they have plenty) they don't leave. They get loud and in our faces and guess what? Popular or not, they eventually win because they wear the system and the people down. It happened in the past with abortion, it is happening now with gay marriage and-unless something changes-it will happen tomorrow with euthanasia and the abolition of age of consent laws.

Yet you counsel pro-lifers to leave? No dice. Whether you be a lib Pubbie or a Dem concern troll you'd probably like that, but I'm not going anywhere.

57 posted on 01/22/2013 9:56:00 AM PST by jboot (This isn't your father's America. Stay safe and keep your powder dry.)
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To: Longbow1969

Do you really care what anybody in NY does?? I’m convinced we’re losing elections because of this one issue and it isn’t clear to me that abortion is any MORE evil than having demoKKKrats win elections; demoKKKrats winning elections creates vast evil all over the world.


58 posted on 01/22/2013 9:56:33 AM PST by varmintman
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To: fwdude

In training right now in ob-gyn. Got to see an 8 week “confirmatory” transvaginal ultrasound yesterday. The little form inside the woman’s womb was unmistakably human ...the little heart was just beating away, like a little flashing pulse. Came over loud and clear on the machine.

The parents were enthralled. She was 8 weeks. They were african american, so I was happy that they had not sacrified their child as so many AA’s do. Most abortions are “pushed” to take place at least before 12 weeks.

How can people look at this ...and then abort?

Why aren’t women offered these before the abortions?? If they saw this ...only the worse monsters would choose abortion.

I guess they prevent women from obtaining these early ultrasounds at Planned Murderhood. Telliing the truth would eat into profits.

Then again, I do feel there is a signficant portion of people now who KNOW it’s a baby, will admit it’s a baby, and yet have no problem doing away with it, if it’s inconvenient for them at the time. It’s just how it is ...they don’t care if it’s “not the right time” for them. It’s legal, they tell themselves, and so they go through with it.

Gotta really be “in the zone” to do that.


59 posted on 01/22/2013 9:58:29 AM PST by LibsRJerks
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To: SeekAndFind

I highly doubt the finding, although a previous poster’s mention of public schools does make sense.

If we wonder why Obama was re-elected and we wonder why America is becoming an irrelevant third world country, we need look no further than the public indoctrination system.

We turn our kids over to an indoctrination institution run by liberal NEA unionistas who own the Democrat Party. We give these people unfettered access to our children for 12 years to teach whatever they please. We note that the graduates of the public indoctrination system lack the skills to survive in America, but rack it up to the nonsense that they have more to learn and less time to learn it.

And then, we’re surpised that a Bill Clinton and Barack Obama get 8 years in the WH. We’re shocked that the same liberals and RINOs get re-elected to the congress. We’re stunned at the level of support for idiocy like Global Warming, green energy and Obamaphones and wonder how these things survive today.

And, the last place we look is the public indoctrination system because, after all, these are our kids we’re talking about. We raised them better than that, right?


60 posted on 01/22/2013 10:02:03 AM PST by DustyMoment (Congress - another name for anti-American criminals!!)
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