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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: Marathoner

this poll is bull sh** They are trying to push policy with polls. I don’t trust any media anymore.


21 posted on 01/22/2013 8:44:08 AM PST by flowergirl
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To: SeekAndFind

I neither believe or come anywhere near trusting this poll. The prevelance of people who stand AGAINST abortion has done nothing but grow over the last decade. I seriously believe this is fabrication.


22 posted on 01/22/2013 8:45:26 AM PST by ICE-FLYER (God bless and keep the United States of America)
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To: SeekAndFind; wagglebee
Including baby outside of the womb, gasping for air, left to die in a closet for HOURS?

SHeaahhh right, lying commies. No one else stands where President Obama stands on this issue except Mengele.

23 posted on 01/22/2013 8:45:54 AM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: SeekAndFind

What percentage of Americans supported the institution of slavery, with the remark “don’t personally want one but...”.

There is right. There is wrong. There is no “the public prefers...”.

Why disguise the issue of WHEN LIFE BEGINS since scientists are so damned excited about discovering how LIFE BEGAN many millions of years ago? They have observable data for conception to crying baby. They deny the evidence.


24 posted on 01/22/2013 8:48:41 AM PST by a fool in paradise (America 2013 - STUCK ON STUPID)
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To: SeekAndFind

We’re aborting the wrong ones? 54%?


25 posted on 01/22/2013 8:48:53 AM PST by showme_the_Glory (ILLEGAL: prohibited by law. ALIEN: Owing political allegiance to another country or government)
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To: svcw
...who was nearly identical to obama on social issues.

I have yet to come across a lib, and I deal with many, who believes that Romney and Obama are identical (even "nearly') on social issues.

Nor did Obama run that way.

26 posted on 01/22/2013 8:48:57 AM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: svcw

As bad as Romney was, Allen, Mourdock and Atkins were worse. Not because they were liberals, just the opposite. They were professed conservatives who expressed views on abortion which were so bizarre that they set the pro-life movement back substantially.


27 posted on 01/22/2013 8:50:35 AM PST by Mr. Lucky
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To: Mr. Lucky

And worst of all the lost us the senate of their BS. Really screwed us.


28 posted on 01/22/2013 8:52:41 AM PST by Monty22002
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To: kabar

BINGO!


29 posted on 01/22/2013 8:53:34 AM PST by frogjerk (Obama Claus is coming to town!)
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To: 1rudeboy

I found that actually to be that most amusing.
When talking to a liberal, they will list the ever so important social issues that are the reason their vote goes to obama, and when you point out what you just ran down were Romney’s stated political positions, they look at you like you have lobsters crawling out of your ears.

And the most annoying which appears to be happening is the GOPe is is looking for an even more liberal than before candidate, by systematically discrediting actual conservatives.

The Republican Party is dead, it’s time for a new party.


30 posted on 01/22/2013 8:54:50 AM PST by svcw (Why is one cell on another planet considered life, and in the womb it is not.)
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To: SeekAndFind
I think the proper approach to this needs to be outside of pursuits to change the law. The proper approach (i.e. the most pragmatic and likely to have results in the shortest time) is to try to change hearts. Part of this has to be via education. If people really knew what mid and late-term abortion, or partial birth abortion truly was, I have to believe most would be appalled and want them stopped. It's really important to get this information in front of people, even if it is characterized by the left as propaganda (which it clearly isn't).

The other part of this has to be, in my opinion, strong efforts to characterize those who use abortion as a means of birth control as highly irresponsible and selfish, instead of as victims - which is how the MSM and progressives (including Obama) characterize them. Just like Holder's comment about making gun ownership ‘uncool’, like ‘smokers herded together outside’, we need to characterize this kind of selfish and irresponsible lifestyle for what it is. You have to start somewhere, and so I would focus on those who have had recurrent abortions and use it as a means of birth control.

31 posted on 01/22/2013 8:55:50 AM PST by pieceofthepuzzle
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To: Monty22002
"Move to a country that bans it"?? So your position is "abortion, love it or leave it"?

Come to think of it, it smells like disruptor troll in here.

32 posted on 01/22/2013 8:56:43 AM PST by jboot (This isn't your father's America. Stay safe and keep your powder dry.)
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To: kabar
And add to that that Time Magazine just had a big issue stating that the Pro-lifers have been winning ever sense Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood is shying away from using the label "pro-choice".

This poll is exactly what you said.

33 posted on 01/22/2013 8:59:20 AM PST by frogjerk (Obama Claus is coming to town!)
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To: SeekAndFind
I refuse to believe this push poll data. The cause for Life has been steadily gaining on the culture of Death since Roe v. Wade.

The progress that science has made, 3-D and 4-D images from the womb, conception to birth visualized, has definitively proved Life for all to see.


34 posted on 01/22/2013 8:59:29 AM PST by Servant of the Cross (the Truth will set you free)
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To: SeekAndFind

So we’ve finally trained our young ladies to be B’s and hoe’s.

Hard to believe we’ve gone from a 4% illegitimate birth rate to over 40% in my lifetime. And the 4% was BEFORE RoeWade, when abortions were not commonly available. So abortion has not solved unplanned pregnancy. Rather the new secular morality which espouses both abortion and sexual ‘liberation’ has led to a society where nearly half of all children are born out of wedlock, raised by a single mother on government support.

How exactly will society function when half the population was raised in this manner; without work ethic, dependent on government handouts, and without a father for moral guidance? Will the other half work twice as hard to support these crime prone vagabonds through redistributive taxation? And why should we be surprised when these morally bankrupt government dependents vote for the welfare king, Barack I?

God help our children, because the United States as we know it has ceased to exist.


35 posted on 01/22/2013 8:59:57 AM PST by LucianOfSamasota (Tanstaafl - its not just for breakfast anymore...)
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To: svcw

“The Republican Party is dead, it’s time for a new party.”

Actually it is time for a new country.

I used to worry about the commies landing here or the Ruskies blowing us off the map. Now I don’t worry one bit because we have gotten to the point where we are morally at least as bad as they are or perhaps in some cases even worse.

I was watching The Rifleman on old rerun TV the other evening....pointed out to my wife, could you imagine a show with as moralistic a message as that show had that it would even be allowed into production today! Just trying to find a lead actor who could pull off that role would be a chore.


36 posted on 01/22/2013 9:01:55 AM PST by Mouton (108th MI Group.....68-71)
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To: Servant of the Cross

Show the picture of the baby in the womb and then poll the question; is it all right to kill this child?


37 posted on 01/22/2013 9:04:43 AM PST by usual suspect
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To: brownsfan

-— I am a stranger in a strange land -—

A stranger in a post-Christian land.

C.S. Lewis said that neo-paganism in the West will be worse than ancient paganism, because we will have rejected Christ.

It’s a sobering thought. Personally, I’m amazed by God’s patience.


38 posted on 01/22/2013 9:06:57 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
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To: SeekAndFind
See also: NBC poll is grossly misleading...
http://www.lifenews.com/2013/01/22/nbc-poll-claiming-americans-favor-roe-is-grossly-misleading/
Would like to add that a multitude of polls the last several years have shown that Americans have turned pro-life. For example the article linked from Life News link above quotes a Marist poll showing 83% or respondents want restrictions on Roe v. Wade.
39 posted on 01/22/2013 9:08:28 AM PST by Missouri gal
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To: SeekAndFind

I bet a lot of pople are totally ignorant about abortion, its not like they ever show the results of one on TV


40 posted on 01/22/2013 9:11:00 AM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
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