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.
(October 2012) NARAL’s pro-abortion president, Nancy Keenan, announced today she will resign her position at the end of the year to help the pro-abortion group overcome one of the problems plaguing the pro-abortion movement — a lack of young leaders....Don't forget, these people kill babies for money. Lying is nothing to them.
...Anecdotally, Keenan related the story of getting off her train in Washington during the weekend of the March for Life, which saw 400,000 pro-life advocates fill the nation’s capital to rally against abortion.
She saw huge numbers of teenagers and young adults that she doesn’t typically see at pro-abortion rallies.
“I just thought, my gosh, they are so young,” Keenan recalled. “There are so many of them, and they are so young.”
Or, to put it another way....
The average female voter in this country would rather elect Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot than to run the risk that maybe, possibly, somehow, someday, somebody might pose an impediment to their ability to get an abortion. Provided they ever needed one.
That is really MESSED UP!
I find this hard to believe. Polls in recent years have shown young people moving away from supporting abortion.
A Republican senate candidate makes a politically insensitive, wholly inane, demonstrably false claim regarding the physiology of a woman during rape and it's the media's fault for jumping on it?
I wouldn’t trust NBC if they told me the sky was blue. They have a long reputation of lying, bias, obfuscation, leftism, attacks on conservatives and Republicans, Reagan and Palin-bashing, slanting the news and omitting anything unfavorable to those they like.
The headlines are misleading. Dig down deep into the poll and it’s doesn’t back up the assertions.
There is no shortage of Republicans who really believe that government-funded abortions would be a dandy way to cut the welfare rolls. They’ve largely been hiding under a rock since Reagan, but they’ve always been out there.
"Pro-Choice" Americans at Record-Low 41% [May 2012]
What am I overlooking?
That is really MESSED UP!
GRANTED that is messed up, the question is, is it AS messed up as allowing demoKKKrats to win national elections? It isn't clear to me that it is. This is the closest thing the dems have to a winning issue and their advertising last summer and Fall, at least in the swing states, featured little else.
My brother's next door neighbor told him she'd like to vote for RR based on economic and business positions but that "I have a teenage daughter, I can't chance it". That's what we're dealing with. It's probably the case that conservatives needs to redouble their efforts at changing people's hearts, and drop any efforts or thoughts about changing laws. Dems view this one the way we view the 2'nd amendment i.e. they're willing to go to war over it.
So are you going to change your screen name to "Leftward Ho"?
You’re overlooking the completely different questions in the two polls; Gallup was asking if people identify THEMSELVES as “Pro-Choice” and “Pro-Life” - the polls in this thread are asking people for their opinions on specific laws and policies.
Many people who don’t feel comfortable with identifying themselves as “Pro-Choice” support Pro-Choice policies.
A related or separate issue is how you ask the same question; if you asked “Should women be allowed to murder their unborn babies?” you’ll get mostly no answers; ask the EXACT SAME sample “Should women have the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy?” you’ll get mostly yes answers.
They were pre-twisted, and didn't require the media to do the twisting. If Romney had supported Mourdock and Akin, he would have lost by 2-3% more than he did.
All I ever wanted was to see Roe v. Wade overturned. If a state wants abortion, let 'em have it. My problem was that some interventionist justices decided it was a Constitutional right when it wasn't, and prevented states from outlawing it if they so wished.
Of course the poll is misleading. How can the majority of the country say they are pro-life, but also say they are OK with murdering the unborn. These are liberal polls. How many republicans will say it’s OK to murder the unborn? I rest my case. These liberal polls come out for one reason only, to be mentioned on the liberal news shows and repeated like they are gospel. Bill O’Reilly the faux Catholic will also mentioned it, probably tonight........and agree with it.
I’m sorry, rvw will never be overturned. I wish it could be, but that couldn’t happen with a full Bush appointed USSC much less a 6 or 5 con one. It’ll never, ever happen. And things are going more liberal, not less. That war is lost. We have to fight what we can and make up the losses much later in generations to come.
time to change churches.
i’m sorry but this country may not exist according to your time table.
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