Politico misrepresents Gallup poll as finding majority "are anti-abortion"
SUMMARY: Politico reported that "a new Gallup poll found that ... the majority of Americans are anti-abortion." In fact, 51 percent of respondents to the poll identified themselves as "pro- life" -- not "anti-abortion," and 76 percent said abortion should be legal at least under certain circumstances.
A May 17 Politico article reported that President Obama "comes to Notre Dame as a new Gallup poll found that for the first time, the majority of Americans are anti-abortion." In fact, the Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans, 51 percent, identify themselves as "pro-life" -- not "anti-abortion." Moreover, the same Gallup poll also found that 53 percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, that 23 percent believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances, and that 22 percent believe abortion should always be illegal.
From the Gallup poll analysis published May 15:
[...]
From the May 17 Politico article:
Obama still has considerable support among Catholics. A recent Pew survey showed 50 percent of Catholics surveyed think Notre Dame was right to invite him to speak, while 28 percent disagreed with the invitation.
But Obama's support has dropped among certain groups, including white Catholics who attend mass regularly, according to Greg Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. In February, two-thirds of white Catholics who attend mass every week approved of his job performance, and now less than half do, Smith said.
Obama also comes to Notre Dame as a new Gallup poll found that for the first time, the majority of Americans are anti-abortion.
Obama has sought to position himself well amid the changing sentiment.
Politically, Dunn pointed out, Obama has made clear to anti-abortion voters that they are welcome in the Democratic fold. Obama's convention platform was amended to include references to pre- and post-natal care and adoption - ways "to reduce the need for abortions."
"However, liberals will demand the right to death for all babies before they are born for whatever reason(s) they can think of"
i am what you on the right like to call a moonbat. however my attitude is pro-life. no one can make me have an abortion. it's my choice. and if a woman does choose to have an abortion that is her choice. yours and my beliefs are irrelavent. you on the right keep saying that the govenment is stealing your liberties yet it seems to be your side that wants to only allow people to have the liberties you agree with. when the "liberals" come to you and demand that you or your family have an abortion you may have an arguement. until then though, understand that alot of prople don't share your religious views or your view of what moral or not so you do not get to choose whats right for them.
::blink::
Second: As usual, you misrepresent the liberal position. If that's the best you cad do, this signlas that you concede the point, since you can't argue it logically. Thank you.
For the record? THIS liberal is against third trimester and partial birth abortions, but I'm willing to hear the doctor's out. (I haven't heard any good arguments yet, but I won't mokc them the way O'Rielly has!) I think second trimester abortions shoud be limted to life/sever health issues, but that first trimester should be basically unrestricted. Rape exceptions would therefore be covered in the first trimester. Now... I'M not trying to force that view down anyone else throat but IF I DID, it would ask consideraly LESS of them thatn your position does. (And you can't "force" RIGHTS onto someone else. That's just nonsense.)
It is only slightly less ludicrous to suggest that a few hundered undifferentiated cells IS.
The gray area lies in between, and grows dark pretty quickly, by any reasonable standard. There is definitely a point, prior to birth and areguably prior to viability, that you siomply cannot deny that we are talking about a child.
There is also a time period before which we clearly are not. And it's NOT CONCEPTION. It MIGHT be implantaion (which would still rule out most arbortions, although it allows for ESC Reseacrh) but I simply posit that it's later than that. I saw the first untrasound... I saw a small black dot. I also saw the second (and third) ultrasound, and I saw a CHILD.
So while you may think there's no differecne between 1st and 3rd there IS. And determining the point at which white-light gray becoem darkgray-black is in fact the argument at hand. No one the "pro-choice" side is arguing for unrestrcted abrotion up to birth. That's nonsense. The "pro-lifers" ARE for the most part arguing for NO ABROTIONS after "conception" (which is absurd, because w/o implantation you're not even pregnant) excpet for certain cases. And we feel that this position goes way too far. A common ground would allow for the termination of an unwanted pregnancy at some VERY EARLY point. It would not be ANYONE'S preferred method of contraception, simply because there are easier methods that are a lot easier and safer.
So there's nothing hypocritical about it. There are no rights until they are granted by the mother, and that's what the second-trimester cut-off does.
I've looked at this from a lot of different ways, but I cannot abide any school of though that really settles the legal issue for me in any principled way. Mainly because you are trying to settle a "rights of the (potential) child versus rights the mother" and we have no good way of answering what gives the potential child its rights and when.
HEY, MMFA: Where's that "Edit" Fucntion?! :)
But if we don't support it legally, should we still support worse penalties for the murder of a pregnant woman? What if an assault led to a woman losing her first-trimester "fetus"?
Seems like it's a baby if you want it, a fetus if you dont.
In any case it won't settle the ABORTION issue because of that clause: a choice that you are ENTITLED to. And we won't agree on that. HOWEVER... In the case of a mureder or even assault of a pregnant woman, you still have TWO crimes, even is you only recognize ONE victim. There's the actual assault/murder. Alwasy a crime, pregnant or not. The victim is victimized a second time if the pregnancy is terminated. This is done AGINST THE WILL of the mother, and something IS taklen from her that she is otherwise entitled to keep. (Even if you don't support a mothrers choice to abort, I assume you support her coice to KEEP the child, right?) Thus the fetus does NOT have to be a victim in and of itself to have a stiffer penalty. The fact that something (the pregnancy/fetus in this case) was taken (and thus a second choice usurped) is sufficient to justify the stiffer punnishment for the crime. Not two victims, but two crimes against the same victim.
Well since you are will to hear someone out..
Partial Birth abortion-- Tell me how in the world can you claim to save a mothers life you need to kill a child that is Delivered all but the head.. this childs head is held inside the mothers womb so that it can be considered not delivered fully, while the entire body is out of the womans body. Since the Shoulders are the largest part of the baby, if it were not for the doctor holding the babys head inside the womb it would have just slipped out. While the doctor is holding the head in he makes a hole at the base of the neck where the cervical cord is. If that is not grusome enough for you, then you need to read up on want else is done to the poor babies brain.
Now tell me why in the world would any person including our PRESIDENT support such act.
And yes the Majority of Democrates support this type of abortion on the ground it would save the mother life if needed.
REALLY REALLY THINK ABOUT THAT. THE BABY IS ALREADY DELIVERED JUST BEING HELD IN BY THE DR.
The second thing I want to address is the so called late term abortion. Years ago my cousin and his wife were pregnant and late in the pregnancy they found out the baby's head wasn't fully formed and would not cover the brain and it would die in a matter of minutes after birth. They had 2 options at that time carry the baby to full term knowing it would die soon after birth or have a saline abortion now and not risk any health matters to the mother. Being good Christians I'm sure they prayed deeply on this matter and they both came to the conclusion to go with the saline abortion to spare themselves the agony of seeing their daughter die in minutes and the chances of her getting very ill from having a dead fetus inside her womb (gangrene and the like). At the time my parents owned 3 burial plots and they gave one to my cousin's so they could bury their daughter.
So don't give me that crap that there's never a time an abortion has to be done to save the life of the mother.
On your first point, what does breech mean?
That "thud" you hear is my jaw hitting the floor. Since when do conservatives take the high road?
As for the rest of this drivel, saying that someone who supports womens right on abortion equate to "demand the right to death for all babies" is beyond the absurd. I can take comments out of context and exagerate the meaning beyond the pale. That doesn't make them anymore true but; hey, it makes for good headlines.
* - I generally fall into the "under most circumstances bucket", opposing post-viability abortions except to protect life or health but supporting pre-viability abortions.
However, liberals will demand the right to death for all babies before they are born for whatever reason(s) they can think of
Saying something like that shows you are a partisan troll that only wants to provoke us and doesnt care in the least what is true or real nor are you interested in actual dialogue. It is a lie and you KNOW it is a lie and you dont care.
"Pro-life" does not mean "abortion should be illegal under all circumstances". Likewise, "pro-choice" usually doesn't mean "abortion should be legal under all circumstances".
Others may have had different experiences, but I've found that people who call themselves "pro-choice" are almost always opposed to restrictions on abortion in the 1st trimester, but can take varying positions on the 2nd and 3rd.
People I've known who identify as "pro-life" oppose the idea that there is a right to abortion on principle, but they allow for exceptions for the life of the mother and may or may not support the so-called 'hard case' exceptions (rape, incest, birth defects).
Not definitive- but might be helpful to some.
What's more, the pro-life position, as you describe it and how it's been put into prectice (1) Does often oppose rape exceptions (South Dakota, for example) (2) Is held by those who also oppose education on contraception methods. And that's just UFNDING them, let alone making them opt-out / mandatory. (3) Lobby hard to eliminate the social welfare / saftey nets that would support a single paretn sho chooses to keep their child. (Except of course CHURCH based charities, but why should someone be force to rely on the curch?!) (4) Have done nothing to strength the institution of adoption or dispel society predujice aginst the act. (And being adopted myself I have a somewhat unique viewpoitn on this. And believe me: Parents generally lobby for their child to keep the child, rather than give it up for adoption. This has had far mor to do with the 10 year long waiting list for adoptions than abortions have.
Until you're ready to do what's necessary to prevent as many unintended pregancy as possible and both support single parents and the right of the women who give their childeredn up and the rights of the parents who adopt them, you have NO RIGHT to force someone to go through with an unplanned pregnancy. I'd have a lot more support for the idealistic position here, if they ever did anything pragmatic about it.
23.7% oppose all abortion and identify as Pro-Life.
31.3% oppose abortion in all but "a few circumstances" and call themselves Pro-Life.
7% oppose abortion in all but "a few circumstances" and call themselves Pro-Choice.
15% believe abortion should be legal in "most circumstances" and identify as Pro-Choice.
23% believe abortion should be legal under "any circumstances", and obviously identify as Pro-Choice.
What this shows (and again, it's in no way scientific) is that less than half of the people who identify as Pro-Life oppose all abortion, and similarly, about half of Pro-Choice supporters favor at least some limitations.
* - This is very rough because I have normalized both polls to 100% to remove non-answers and "not sure"s, and because I make (reasonable) assumptions in my "bucketing". The implicit assumption is that no-one identifies as Pro-Life and supports abortion "in most [or any] circumstances", and noone identifies as Pro-Choice while opposing all abortions.
If you go back and RE-read Bill's comment, you may notice the lack of mention of such an event, thereby removing all possibility that Bill is using an anecdote to bolster his opinion. (That opinion would be shared by ALL credible statisticians.)
You may also notice that your single comment here is not being used as proof that you don't know what you're talking about. That would truly be anecdotal. However, a collection of your comments easily constitutes sufficient evidence to establish acceptance by the scientific community of the theory that you, indeed, don't know what you're talking about.
Hopefully, future comments from you will be based on the new and accurate information I have just provided. I look forward to reading them.
The rest of your post was just snide comments prettied up with multi-syllabic words, and I'm sure we all appreciate your mastery of the English language. Of course, by supporting Bill's position as "scientific" rather than accepting a scientific poll, you're leading one way and running another.
I stand by my opinion. I never stated that it was anything more than a suspicion based on my perceptions. I do believe there is reasonable logic behind my opinion, but I recognize others may disagree. You're wrong, however, in your suggestion as to how I came to my suspicions. As I stated, I would be equally suspicious if the polls had shown a comparable shift the other direction. That magnitude of shift without some underlying reason (and no one's provided any such reason) just seems very unlikely.
You also said that you thought that the following year would return to the norm. I don't believe that, and I don't think that there's any good reason to presume that.
That meshes quite well with my observations of other polls on other topics over time. Sharp changes in public opinion don't happen suddenly without causes driving those changes. There haven't been any significant events recently that pertain to the issue of abortion. That provides reason to be suspicious of that spike.
You did interpret one part correctly, however, and that was the "prettied up" snide part. I apologize for that being the result of my intolerance of the misuse of language. To show how I've repented, I won't say anything about your illogical defense of your usage of the word "anecdotal" even after pointing out that there was no anecdote.
What "scheme" are you referring to?
For six years the party of "life" was in control of all 3 branches of government. And NOTHING happened concerning abortion. NOTHING. So all this protesting at ND and "Obama's a baby killer" teevee talk and your posts are nothing more than WHINING.
The highway of human destiny is littered with the roadkill of conservative prophets.
His opinion was that there was nothing that occurred that could explain such a shift.
That's not an argument (which could be logical or not).
It's an assumption.
I apologize.
It was you.
I retract my apology.
Also, I'm not a conservative.
I'm not a liberal either, but
being pro-life doesn't automatically
mean that you're a conservative.
Is Martin Sheen a conservative?
Is Nat Hentoff a conservative?
Google 'PLAGAL'.
Google 'Consinstent Life Ethic'.
I'm not sure what riled up your defensiveness of being neither liberal nor conservative, but let me state that I am pro-life. I also happen to think that a woman should have the right to choose what's moral for her, too. I also happen to be staunchly anti-conservative.
I would also ask that you and Dex - and anybody else who doesn't understand the position that Bill stated - to point out the event or events that are likely to have led to the 7 point swing shown in that graph.
Responsible polling firms try hard to make their samples random, but any statistician can tell you that a random distribution doesn't guarantee an even distribution. It could happen that one side of the issue was represented out of proportion to their actual share of the population.
But "pro-life" gives unfair advantages to to those who are "anti-abortion." Every non-psychotic person is pro-life in a sense. Unless one has a good knowledge of the politicization of the term, it is difficult to say one is not pro-life.
The correct term is "anti-abortion". Gallup should refrain from using politicized terminology of that sort. Keep it objective.
If you think "pro-choice" is the correct terminology, and that people understand what that means, I don't see why a widely-accepted term (although not my favorite, because most people are in fact not "anti-life") would be confusing.
It's worth pointing out that 'pro-lifers' aren't crazy about the term 'pro-choice', either.
They don't see themselves as 'anti-choice' any more than 'pro-choicers' see themselves as 'anti-life'.
Moreover, just as 'pro-lifers' aren't necessarily in favor of life on all issues (eg, capital punishment) 'pro-choicers' aren't in favor of choice on all issues either (eg, owning firearms).
That's a totally unbiased observation.
"Pro-choice" is the preferred term of one lobby, and "pro-life" is the preferred term of the other.
How is assigning a non-preferred term based on the bias of one group supposed to yield less bias than using the names each side has chosen.
I don't care if pro-choicer's decide to call themselves 'guardians of liberty' and pro-lifers decide to call themselves 'saviours of the innocents'. The only way not to have bias is to let each side use a framing device which is inherently biased and then let them cancel each other out.
Everyone is "pro-choice" to some extent as well. If we can extend "pro-life" to another sense (as in refraining from killing random people on the street, for example, something common among non-psychotic people), then anyone who thinks they should be able to decide on what they're having for lunch is "pro-choice". Therefore, the correct term would be "pro-abortion", right? It's just not an argument you want to get into. Keep a standard of using the terminology that's established and commonly used.
Personally I think we get waaay too obsessed over labels. The far more meanigful questions are along the lines of "How do you feel about the legality of abortion?" or "Under what circumstances should abortion be protected as a right?" That way you get info on how people feel about POLICY rathear than how the percieve their own feelings.
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
"Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases or illegal in all cases?"
Always legal 15% usually legal 37% usually illegal 27% and always illegal 14%
Notice usually legal and always legal outpoll usually illegal and always illegal
Here is the MONEY question
"In general, do you agree or disagree with the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that established a woman's right to an abortion?"
Agree 63% disagree 33%
Feel free to just keep posting what you WISH were true in the vain hope it will MAKE it true but those of us in the reality based universe just arent going to take it seriously
When given a 4 category query, the result is...
Always legal=22%
Legal under most circumstances=15%
Illegal under most circumstances=37%
Always illegal=23%
I will defend a woman's right to choose but; that doesn't mean that I don't wish that abortions were not necessary. Based on that statement you could say that I was anti-abortion.