Support for Abortion in Sharp Decline [Zogby : 52% favor abortion, down from 68% a decade ago]

Zogby.com ^ | Jan 23, 2006 | Zogby Poll

[summer]

As the nation marks the 33rd anniversary of the landmark 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade that established abortion rights across America, a slight majority believes abortion should be always be available, or should be available without government financing, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.

The survey shows that 52% favor abortion, including 10% who saying they believe it should be available, but that the government should not pay for it.

Forty-three percent oppose abortion, though most of those believe there should be exceptions in the cases of rape, incest, or when the pregnancy posed a grave threat to the life of the mother. A total of 9% said they “always oppose” abortion.

Among women, 50% said they favored the availability of abortion in all cases, while another 8% said they favor its availability but do not want the government to pay for it. Thirty-eight percent of women said they opposed abortion outright, or with certain exceptions. Among men, 59% said they oppose abortion completely or with certain exceptions, while 35% said they favor it always. Another 12% said they favor it but do not want the government to pay for it.

“What’s striking to me is that the numbers were radically different ten years ago,” said John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. “Ten years ago, maybe just seven or eight years ago, pro-choice forces were in the ascendancy and posted pro-choice numbers in the area of 65% to 68%.”

They still represent a majority, but just barely, the survey shows.

The Zogby survey highlights a dramatic partisan split on the question. While 74% of Democrats said they favor abortion the availability of in all circumstances, just 9% of Republicans feel the same way. And while 78% of Republicans oppose abortion either completely or with some exceptions, only 17% of Democrats agree.

Among independents, 45% said they always favor the right to an abortion.

Among Republicans, 77% said that “abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter,” while 13% disagreed with that statement. Among Democrats, 15% believe that abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter, and 70% disagreed.

The poll comes as the U.S. Senate is preparing to vote soon on the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Judge Alito, nominated last year by President Bush to take the seat now occupied by moderate Sandra Day O’Connor, is considered a conservative that could change the balance on the court on this issue and others.

The partisan divide over abortion is most dramatic when considering whether parents should be notified before a daughter’s abortion. While 88% of Republicans agree parents should know ahead of time, just 26% of Democrats agree. One in every two independents say parents should be told ahead of time.

The national split extends to the question about late-term abortion. One-third opposes late-term abortions except when the mother’s life is in danger; one-third opposes the procedure except when the overall health of the mother is at risk, and 20% said they opposed late-term abortions in all circumstances. Another 11% said they did not agree with any of those circumstances.

The Zogby Interactive survey was conducted Jan. 20-23, and included 5,640 interviews. The margin of error for the poll is +/-1.3 percentage points.

(1/23/2006)

[jwalsh07]

I think most people are against late term abortion. I personally would only want to see them done out of medical necessity (and no, I don't know what that would be, specifically).

Yes, they are. And the courts by preventing people to have their views expressed in the legislatures have fanned the flames of the culture war for more than thirty years. A lesson for us all in what activist courts sow.

You sound as though your big problem is with late abortion, not all abortion. However, if you only leave the first trimester legal, that still allows about 90% of all abortions that occur.

:-} No Linda, I am pro life absent excpetion except for the life of the Mom. I don't believ we should visit the sins of the mother and father on the child. When I was younger I admit to having a slightly different view there but with age came my wife and her wisdom. :-}

I try to convince pro choice folks of the error of their ways by pointing out the total illogic and immorality at the extreme and then work back from there.

I pinged my pal torie who has moderate views on abortion like you because I think he would get a kick out of our conversation. Though he and I don't see eye to eye on everything we have become very good friends here at FR. And I'm still trying to move him toward the 'continuum' of life. LOL

[linda_22003]

I must say that I appreciate a calm comparison of views as opposed to what people do out on the streets. :)

[Diddle E. Squat]

Well yes, in response to an antagonistic post #42. And I made it clear in my post both how rare the "endangerment of the mother" cases are and that the pro-abortion types try to stretch that into a huge loophole.

[Mr. Silverback]

The word feminism here is just a stealth tool.

I must object. Feminism is at its core the idea that women have the right to direct their lives in the same way as men. Man hating, promiscuity and Steinhamist materialism are not feminist. Saying Serrin Foster's crowd are using the term in stealth is like saying that Rich Lowry is a stealth conservative.

There's a great piece over at National Review about the Sufferagettes and their unswerving pro-life views.

[Flavius Josephus]

That's funny, I used to be in favor of it for rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, but now I don't think they child should have to pay for the rape or incest, and I don't believe it ever endangers the life of the mother.

[Aquinasfan]

People have information available to understand how the drugs they take work, and what the contraindications and interactions are.

Nuh-uh. That's not going to work.

The pill probably acts as abortifacient, that is, it acts to kill another human being, in more than 1 in 100 cases. Any true medicine or medical treatment that is similarly lethal would either be banned or severely restricted.

The pill can have a break-through ovulation rate that can be as high as 17 ovulations per 100 women who used the pill for one year.

Other researchers have shown that the low dose pill has an even higher rate of break-through ovulation of almost 27 ovulations per 100 women per year.

The Pill – How it works and fails.

Of course, the pill isn't a medical treatment, since the proper operation of the reproductive system represents a state of health, and not a disease. So the pill is simply a poison, with no medical value.

[linda_22003]

I would say that most of your view of the pill and its "necessity" is based on your religion, which is against it. I don't think it's ever going to be taken off the market because of people's religious convictions.

[Conservative Goddess]

And if I could interject on the subject of late term abortions, vis a vis medical necessity......

It is my understanding that the AMA has openly criticized the "partial birth abortion" procedure, arguing that it is NEVER medically necessary. There reasoning is really quite sound:

Whereas it may be necessary to separate the infant from the mother in order to protect the health of the mother, it is never necessary to kill the baby in the process. The baby may not survive the separation, but that should be but an unfortunate consequence, not part of the desired outcome.

The "health of the mother" argument is therefore, specious.

[no dems]

I have only one comment:

PRAISE THE LORD!!

[jwalsh07]

Always room for learned interjection.

[loveliberty2]

Technology's advance has allowed individuals to see the complete little person of only a few weeks who is living in the womb, and, once viewed as a person, it's hard to fall for the old, indefinite "fetus" description. "Right of privacy," "woman's right to choose," all such terms are deliberate terms to make acceptable, under law, what was previously considered to be unacceptable--allowing one class of citizens (women) the sole right to choose who is born and who is not allowed to proceed to what we call "birth."

Even the most uneducated can make moral distinctions when presented with facts, undisguised by misleading language.

Thomas Jefferson wrote of what he called the "moral sense" with which the Creator had endowed each individual and said: "State a moral case to a plowman and a professor. The former will decide it as well and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules." (Jefferson's 'Letter to Peter Carr')

In our day and time, he might add to that, "or by artificial words and terms designed to mislead."

[Aquinasfan]

I would say that most of your view of the pill and its "necessity" is based on your religion, which is against it.

You believe in criminalizing murder, right? So if we are to have laws against murder, then we must define what a human being is. If you want to criminalize murder, you must offer a rational definition of the beginning of human life.

I believe that human life begins at the moment of conception because tracing human life backwards from birth, we find that the baby becomes a distinct self-generating individual at the moment of fertilization. Prior to fertilization, no generation occurs.

What is your definition of the beginning of human life?

[fullchroma]

Feminists for Life refers to just those early suffragists throughout their material and state that they are carrying on that tradition. I share with you absolute disdain and aborrance for modern feminism with this one exception.

[linda_22003]

It begins when pregnancy begins (whether that is when sperm meets egg, or when implantation occurs), and that is when the process begins. I do not believe that the life of a ten-minute old blastocyst is as fully realized and has the moral equivalence of the fully-grown woman it is inside.

[Sisku Hanne]

It has been my experience that the most strident supporters have first-hand experience. I think unresolved guilt makes them angry.

[Koblenz]

That's very true; technology has had an important impact on this subject.

Remember that ad for GE? It was a sonogram machine, with the song "the first time ever I saw your face" playing and a young couple looking at the sonogram. That really was a powerful pro-life ad, albeit not necessarily intentionally.

[fullchroma]

Thanks for the reference to Mr. Lowry's excellenet article. Here is something from it:

The modern-day successors to Anthony and Stanton are Feminists for Life, an organization determined to reclaim the legacy of America's earliest women's-rights activists, but "Debunking the myth that 19th century women's rights supported abortion is a constant challenge, especially for historians faced with prejudice and political correctness."

These pro-life women celebrate the early feminists' delight in motherhood.

[Flavius Josephus]

"Sporting religious vestments and waving shocking pictures of the products of aborted fetuses..." AFP Yesterday

[Flavius Josephus]

Under what conditions is the life of the mother threatened, Diddle?

[jwalsh07]