Who are the real abortion extremists? The media don't exactly trumpet these abortion poll results

Recent letters to the Minneapolis Star Tribune have sounded apocalyptic warnings about the "extremism" of Republican candidates' views on "reproductive rights," the euphemism du jour of the pro-choice movement. Those letters are long on hyperbolic rhetoric, but they're lamentably short on facts. Who are the real abortion "extremists"?

Most abortion polls are notorious for shedding scant light on the subject they purport to measure. They typically ask mushy questions like "Do you believe abortion should be legal in all circumstances, prohibited in all circumstances, or legal only in certain circumstances [italics mine]?" The majority of Americans and Minnesotans, who immediately think of hard cases (rape, incest, or the imperiled life of the mother) that constitute a tiny percentage of all abortions, pick the latter, whereupon the media and pro-choicers triumphantly proclaim, "You see? The country is pro-choice! Pro-lifers are all extremists!" (Actually, that quote is slightly apocryphal; the media and pro-choicers sedulously avoid using the name by which pro-lifers designate themselves. It's always the Orwellian "anti-choice.")

When abortion polls ask the question they should ask, namely "For what reasons, if any, should abortions be permitted (or legal)?", America suddenly becomes awash in "extremists." In the first four months of 1989, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and Newsweek magazine (none of whom can be credibly accused of harboring pro-life sympathies) asked this kind of question in separate polls and destroyed some pro-choice shibboleths in the process. Poll respondents indicated the following approval percentages for specific instances of abortion:
1. Life/Health of Mother -- 90% approval
2. Rape/Incest -- 75% approval
3. Fetal Handicap -- 65% approval
4. Can't Afford -- 40% approval
5. Too Many Children -- 40% approval
6. Emotional Strain -- 35% approval
7. To Finish School -- 28% approval
8. Not Married -- 25% approval
9. As Birth Control -- 16% approval
10. Sex Selection -- 2% approval
Note that the reasons approved by a majority constitute possibly 3 percent of abortions; those disapproved constitute at least 97 percent of all abortions. Ironically and unconscionably, situations #9 and 10 are acceptable grounds for abortions under Doe v. Bolton's meaningless, bar-no-abortions "health" exception.

A mid-1998 poll by the ardently pro-choice Center for Gender Equality found that 53% of respondents said abortion should be illegal except for rape, incest, and saving a woman's life, or else forbidden in all cases. That percentage represented an 8 percent shift away from a pro-abortion position in a poll taken two years earlier. Those results mirrored a May 2002 Gallup poll, in which 53% of respondents (up from 45% in May 2001) viewed abortion as "morally wrong." No less a pro-choice icon than Faye Wattleton, president of the Center for Gender Equality and former president of Planned Parenthood, said of her organization's poll, "We find some of the findings very disturbing." Small wonder. There's an "extremist" everywhere she looks.

"Extremists" abound in Minnesota, too. In a February 2002 poll conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling and Research of Washington, DC, Minnesotans were asked when abortion should be legal. Fifty-two percent responded either "never" or "only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother." A minute 6 percent said, "Abortion should be legal, with no restrictions during the first six months of a pregnancy." A tinier minority, only 5 percent of Minnesotans, checked this poll response: "Abortion should be legal, with no restrictions during the full nine months of a pregnancy" -- a position that reflects Minnesota's current abortion-on-demand policy, one that has been preserved through the tireless efforts of the likes of Minnesota Senate majority leader Roger Moe, governor Jesse Ventura, and U. S. Senator Paul Wellstone.

So one last time, who are the real abortion extremists? Are they not governors (Jesse Ventura), gubernatorial candidates (Roger Moe), Senators (Paul Wellstone), and Star Tribune letter writers (and staff editorialists) who have either never met an abortion they couldn't sanction or who, hiding behind morally bankrupt semantic subterfuge, never deign to address any specific limitations on abortion? Maybe as the elections draw nigh, Moe and Wellstone will explain -- eschewing the meaningless newspeak generalities that surfeit pro-choicers' letters to the Star Tribune -- why they've staked out abortion territory occupied by only 5 percent of Minnesotans.

Well sure it's a good starting point -- especially when you factor in that the abortions they "approve" constitute, what, 3% of all abortions?

Dan

I agree with you. Abortion is unacceptable under any circumstance except for the DEATH of the mother. "Health" has a wide-range of interpretations, but DEATH means that the mother WILL DIE (and, by default, the baby) if something isn't done. This is very, very rare (less than 1% of all abortions). Most of the time, however, there are medical solutions that can prolong the pregnancy until the baby can be taken via c-section at a surviveable gestation, and then whatever is wrong with the mother can be healed. It is very, very rare that something is so serious that a baby has to be aborted to fix it. But, if after multiple consultations the death of the mother and baby is imminent, then I think the mother and father should have the right to decide if an abortion is the only alternative.

Well done rhema!

Note that the reasons approved by a majority constitute possibly 3 percent of abortions; those disapproved constitute at least 97 percent of all abortions.

The good news is that there is popular support for a revision of our abortion laws prohibiting 97 percent of current abortions. That is one million human beings per year!

Why do our elected law makers defend the right to ALL abortions? The pro-abortion lobby pays them to enforce the current state af abortion law which allows abortion for any reason, at any age of justation.

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