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.
lets face it....most of us are prissy squares.....I don't mind being one in my personal life but I am damn sick of giving all power to everyone else....
conservatism starts with fiscal conservatism.....
have a sound fiscal policy, have industry and jobs, people will want to have children, lots of them, just like in the 50's......
we can't force morality on people.....we can only encourage it...
so how has your anti romney attitude reallly worked out?....
we're surrounded by fools even here on FR....this is why the nation is crap...because of these traitors....
Sadly, America is now at best a center-left country. The era of alignment at the right of the political center is over.
And it isn’t going back.
Actually, the scarlet letter has been stamped on ours. THEY'RE seen as "mainstream" now.
The good news/bad news is most people are stupid:
http://www.kofc.org/un/en/news/polls/index.html
This poll puts a different light on the issue.
Most Americans don’t have any freaking idea of who gets abortions and why. They think “most abortions” are for rape, incest, dire health circumstances. But most abortions are basically, “I don’t wanna have a baby right now because it’s not a great time for me.” That’s about 96% of abortions.
Here’s a paragraph from the article:
“Of the 83 percent who support significant restrictions on abortion, 10 percent believe abortion should never be permitted; 12 percent believe abortion should be allowed only to save the life of the mother; 34 percent would restrict abortion only to cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother; and 27 percent would limit abortion to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy.”
Do the arithmetic. A modest majority - 56% - would restrict legal abortion to: no abortion at all or at most; save the mother’s life or at most; in cases of rape or incest.
They didn’t ask about fetal abnormality. I’ve seen polls who do. When you add that exception, the support for that set of abortion restrictions runs over 60%.
“Pro-life” and “pro-abort” can be looked at as absolutes. As a Catholic, I’m an absolutist. No legal abortions. Period.
But I recognize that one can look at the question on a comparative scale, as well. Someone who would restrict abortions to life of the mother, rape and incest - which would ban over 96% of abortions - is more pro-life than pro-abort.
The majority of Americans are significantly more pro-life than pro-abort.
That’s the good news.
Unfortunately, the majority of Americans - the “low information” folks - are too stupid to know it.
That’s the bad news.
Thre is more truth in this post than many Americans would concede. All true, the "American" people are now truly socialists in all but official word. MLK Day is surely the No. 2 holiday now and headed toward No. 1 status. The non-socialists have no plan or organization to proceed.
How long will God hold his hand?
Given the Democrat Senate trend nationally, I now believe that both Akin and Murdock would have been defeated even without the “rape” controversy, for they may have sat on an imaginary lead, taking comfort in Romney’s lead in both of their states.
Then why do so many of the liberal voters have more children than the conservative families can afford to have? And the high rate of abortion corresponds with the decline in the number of conservative voters.
Really? A traitor because I did not support Romney. You are one sick-o-doodle.
Romney was pro-abortion and pro-government health care - same as obama.
Romney got the nomination because he destroyed concervatives and it was people like you who were scared who voted for obamaRomney.
Get a gripe on reality - fella
Because people in the lowest income brackets tend to have a lot of babies the world over. That is the normal. There would be even MORE babies born in leftist demographics if it weren't for abortion.
And the high rate of abortion corresponds with the decline in the number of conservative voters.
So you're suggesting conservative people who don't believe in abortion are having the most abortions?
The fact is we are simply being overwhelmed demographically by lower income minorities who are natural Democrat voters. If they weren't aborting a whole lot of their babies, we'd be losing the demographic war even faster.
I think Murdoch was a not so bright guy way out of their league. Akin was evil/dumb the worst kind. Akin could have manned up and done the right thing and dropped out letting someone more qualified and undamaged to take the fight to Mc Casklle. That would of been the patriotic thing to do but he and his grasping wife....
That said it was like having some troops behind you who accidentally fire off a clip killing 10 of your own guys.
Catherine, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
One of my best friends is a product of rape. She is one of the most gracious, beautiful, smart and kind hearted people that I know. God does not create what he does not love.
I do not understand your post.
Are you saying conservatives have more abortions than liberals?
And what universe do you live in where liberals have more children than liberals?
During the past year SVCW did everything he could to elect Obama and the democrats and I told him I would never forget. While we were aiming our fire at the enemy SVCW was aiming at us. We could have replaced Lib SC Justices with conservatives, now that won’t happen in my life time. When the next two pro abort SCJ are sworn in SVCW will celebrate. They held their line while ours were shredded by people claiming to be supporting us. Never forget the weak links, they will be back.
Oh, I agree. I just meant that it was the ONLY way to ever limit abortion. Yes, that war is lost. The second amendment will be repealed before Roe v. Wade. Unlike you, I don't think there is any reason to fight for anything any more, at least not at the national level. I've thrown in the towel.
Amen to that. God bless your friend, and her mother for giving birth to her.
No, a candidate misspoke in the stress of the moment and said "legitimate" when the proper word was clearly "bona fide."
He was factually correct, in everything that he said. His mistake was in assuming that the average person is as well-informed on the issue as he.
The uninformed media misrepresented what he said and jumped all over him. And the Republican establishment joined in the jumping.
If you ever wonder why conservatism is losing ground, it's because of this. Republicans and conservatives are too quick to throw people on the bus when the media criticizes them. It doesn't matter if the person didn't do anything to deserve criticism. The media uses the tactic to take down conservatives because it works. Until Republicans and conservatives learn to stand up to the media--to point out that the media lies--to use language as emotionally charged as that of the left, but in defense of the truth--and to defend our own--we will keep losing.
In Indiana, candidate Mourdock claimed that it was God's will when women got pregnant from the act of rape; probably the media's fault that anyone was offended by that comment too.
These guys were not the innocent victims of some wholly unforeseeable conspiracy of the Bilderburger media cabal. They were, instead, breathtakingly unprepared for big time politics and showed it badly at their public debates.
I had the unpleasant experience of listening to the whole Mourdock - Donnelly debate; Mourdock was rude, ill prepared and inarticulate throughout the entire evening. Indiana elected conservative Republicans to 2/3 of its congressional seats and to the Statehouse in the 2012 election; that we didn't elect a conservative Republican to the Senate was the candidate's fault, not the media's.
“It should have been gifted wrapped if the Republicans had not run a liberal.”
So what you are saying is that Romney cost us a senate seat in Missouri and a senate seat in Indiana even though Romney won both states by double digits.
And you disagree with the thesis that Akin and Mourdock dragged Romney down with the abortion issue.
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