More Americans call themselves pro life

[mindy]

Poll indicates more Americans call themselves 'pro-life'
It's the first time since Gallup began asking the question 14 years ago that more don't say they're 'pro-choice' on abortion.
By Robin Abcarian
6:47 PM PDT, May 15, 2009
At a time when President Obama is trying to persuade opponents in the abortion battle that they can find middle ground -- in rhetoric, if not reality -- a new Gallup poll shows that more Americans describe themselves as "pro-life."

For the first time since it began asking the question in 1995, the Gallup Poll reported Thursday, 51% of the American adults questioned for its annual Values and Beliefs survey said that when it comes to abortion, they consider themselves "pro-life." Forty-two percent consider themselves "pro-choice." (There is a 3-percentage-point margin of error.)

This finding, Gallup noted, represents a significant shift from years past. As recently as last year, 50% of respondents called themselves "pro-choice" and 44% identified themselves as "pro-life."

Moderate and conservative Republicans accounted for the change; Democrats' attitudes toward abortion remained constant. "It is possible," Gallup said in its analysis, that the president "has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be 'pro-choice' slightly to the left, politically."

Also, in a shift, there is a convergence in the number of Americans who hold what Gallup called "extreme views" on abortion. Those are people who say abortion should always be illegal (23%) and people who say it should never be illegal (22%). Previously, more people thought abortion should always be legal.


On what Gallup calls "the middle option" -- that abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances -- the number has remained steady at 53% since 1975.

"I am pretty confident that Americans really don't want Roe v. Wade overturned," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. The larger number of Americans calling themselves "pro-life," she said, "doesn't square with what has happened in the last several elections."

Keenan cited the rejection of abortion bans by voters in politically conservative South Dakota in 2006 and 2008, and the failure of five other antiabortion ballot measures in California, Oregon and Colorado since 2005.

But antiabortion activists think they have more than the new poll on their side. "This isn't new," said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. "It tracks pretty much with what we've always known: People generally are pro-life depending on how you ask the question."

The Gallup poll comes at a delicate moment for the president, who campaigned on the principle that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare."

During his first three months in office, he took a number of steps that infuriated abortion foes. For example, he lifted abortion restrictions on foreign family planning groups that receive U.S. funding, and ended President George W. Bush's ban on embryonic stem cell research.

But Obama has tried at times to appease opponents of abortion rights.

During the campaign, he vowed to enact the Freedom of Choice Act, which would guarantee the right to legal abortion even if Roe vs. Wade were overturned. Last month, he backpedaled, saying the legislation was not a top priority.

But Yoest said abortion foes were not placated.

"There has been such an avalanche of pro-abortion activity that it's jaw-dropping," she said. "It's not just that his rhetoric doesn't square with reality; the gap is Grand Canyon-size. I think this administration has fundamentally miscalculated how out of step they are with the American people on the abortion issue."

[e-mail]

www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-abortion-poll16-2009may16,0,3897855.story

[Deleted]

I wonder what all those people who claim to be anti - abortion think about IVF treatment, which usually involves (as I understand it) either the destruction of at least one healthy embryo or the deliberate continuation oif a multiple pregnancy where none of the foetuses stand much chance of reaching full term.

I know that most people who believe life begins at conception and have thought things through are opposed to IVF and embryonic cell research mentioned in mindy's article. But I bet if the researchers kicked off with the question "do you agree with IVF?" a lot of the proclaimed anti's would have said yes.

As Charmaine Yoest so very rightly says, it al depends how you ask the question.

[riotgrrl]

I reject the terminology of this debate.

I am pro-life. I think life is a great thing on the whole. Being anti-life would be like being anti-motherhood or anti-apple pie.

I also believe that first trimester abortions should be freely and safely available on demand (with appropriate contraceptive advice and counselling as required.)

In my experience those who claim to be 'pro-life' frequently really aren't. Frequently they're also in favour of the death penalty.

The debate about time limits is unresolved . . and you'll have noted I was careful to say that my views covered the first trimester only. I do believe the debate about the principle of abortion is fundamentally different from the debate about time limits.

www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/jan/29/health.publicservices

This survey of UK women suggests that only 10% would like to see abortion outlawed completely.

www.abortionrights.org.uk/content/view/171/106/

This survey suggests 77% of the UK population do not want to see abortion outlawed.

The USA is fairly unique among Western civilisations with its opposition to abortions per se. I wonder if it's down to the success of evangelical Christian movements over there at a time when the rest of the civilised west is increasingly secular?

(Of course, there is no biblical basis to be opposed to be abortion, but it has nonetheless been taken up as a cause celebre by the American Christians. What a shame they didn't take up similarly strong stances on some of the social justice issues Christ preached on.)

[Deleted]

May 16, 2009 8:59:07 GMT @riotgrrl said:

I reject the terminology of this debate.

I am pro-life. I think life is a great thing on the whole. Being anti-life would be like being anti-motherhood or anti-apple pie.

I also believe that first trimester abortions should be freely and safely available on demand (with appropriate contraceptive advice and counselling as required.)

In my experience those who claim to be 'pro-life' frequently really aren't. Frequently they're also in favour of the death penalty.

The debate about time limits is unresolved . . and you'll have noted I was careful to say that my views covered the first trimester only. I do believe the debate about the principle of abortion is fundamentally different from the debate about time limits.

I agree with all of that.

On the subject of terminology, it is strange that those who describe themselves as Pro Life are firmly against all abortion, yet are happy to decribe their opponents as "pro abortion", thus implying that pro-choicers wish to make termination compulsory.

Of course they don't, but perhaps that is the answer to saving the planet!

[beth]

Nice posts, RG and Skylark. I had similar thoughts when I saw this article. Surely no one would tell a survey they were not prolife. This is double-speak created by social conservatives to try to brand prochoice as the direct opposite of prolife. Outlawing abortion would not stop abortion - just create an atmosphere in which more women would die due to unprofessional, unsanitary conditions.

[randomvioce]

How cananyone who supported spraying agent orange onto another Country as well as dropping two of the biggest bombs in history, not to mention killing thousands of innocent men women and children call them selve pro life?

[Deleted]

Remember also that some people oppose abortion even though they don't believe that a recently-introduced egg and sperm acquire the status of a human.

I know two people - one a teenager, the other a grandmother - who believe that abortion is hugely damaging to a woman. I am unsure of the grounds for their views, but a lot of propaganda to this effect has been put out by the anti-abortion groups, and some of it has been shown to be untrue.

[riotgrrl]

I'm sure that for some women having an abortion is physically and/or psychologically traumatic.

So why do the 'pro-life' mob also try to stop sex education and contraception?

[Big Lin]

I can only speak for myself but I'm pro-life AND a supporter of sex education and contraception.

[randomvioce]

May 16, 2009 22:30:44 GMT Big Lin said:

I can only speak for myself but I'm pro-life AND a supporter of sex education and contraception.

But Lin, what do you mean 'pro life'? We are all pro life as RG points out. Nobody is suggesting that abortion be made compulsory.

What we are saying is that IF a woman wants an abortion, she shouldn't have to go to a back street abortionist, that is all. We are not handing out leaflets saying, kill a baby it is good for a laugh.

[Deleted]

Do you think that an embryo is a baby, Random Voice?

If I did, I certainly wouldn't be in favour of legalising early abortion.

RG, I'm not denying that abortion is damaging for some women, but the recent research I've seen shows that most women suffer no ill effects at all.

[randomvioce]

May 17, 2009 6:13:23 GMT @skylark said:

If I did, I certainly wouldn't be in favour of legalising early abortion.

Hmm, what I think is not really relevant. I cannot see why we would want to make that choice for someone else in completely different circumstances to our own.

Please remember that prior to the 1967 act women who wanted rid of that embryo would go down to the back street abortionist, would have been making that choice for decades before the abortion laws. Given that women will still want to have abortions, I think it better that they have it in safe, clean conditions than a front parlour of a ‘practitioner’ of dubious training.

[mindy]

May 17, 2009 6:13:23 GMT @skylark said:

Do you think that an embryo is a baby, Random Voice?

If I did, I certainly wouldn't be in favour of legalising early abortion.

RG, I'm not denying that abortion is damaging for some women, but the recent research I've seen shows that most women suffer no ill effects at all.

Yes, an embryo is OBVIOUSLY a baby! What else is it? It's not a nothing, it's a life!

Abortion is very close to murder, in my opinion. It's a selfish way out of an inconvenient situation. Especially when there are so many people who can't have children and would love to adopt a newborn.

[randomvioce]

May 17, 2009 13:41:13 GMT @mindy said:

Yes, an embryo is OBVIOUSLY a baby! What else is it? It's not a nothing, it's a life!

Abortion is very close to murder, in my opinion. It's a selfish way out to an inconvenient situation. Especially when there are so many people who can't have children and would love to adopt a newborn.

Well if that is how you feel then don’t have an abortion, but what makes you feel you have the right to decide for other people how they feel? Why not simply keep your nose out of other people’s business? Surely that is fair?

Those that believe that life starts at conception can choose to make that decision, but those who think differently be allowed to make their own decision.

What would we rather have, benefits or abortion?

[fretslider]

May 17, 2009 13:41:13 GMT @mindy said:

May 17, 2009 6:13:23 GMT @skylark said:

Do you think that an embryo is a baby, Random Voice?

If I did, I certainly wouldn't be in favour of legalising early abortion.

RG, I'm not denying that abortion is damaging for some women, but the recent research I've seen shows that most women suffer no ill effects at all.

Yes, an embryo is OBVIOUSLY a baby! What else is it? It's not a nothing, it's a life!

Abortion is very close to murder, in my opinion. It's a selfish way out to an inconvenient situation. Especially when there are so many people who can't have children and would love to adopt a newborn.

Is a zygote a baby? Of course it isn't.

An embryo is a collection of cells at an early stage of animal development , No heart, limbs, eyes, nervous or circulatory system.

Is it always selfish? No, there are often circumstances when it is better that the child is not born.



A glimpse into our common ancestry

[mindy]

May 17, 2009 14:08:04 GMT fretslider said:

May 17, 2009 13:41:13 GMT @mindy said:

Yes, an embryo is OBVIOUSLY a baby! What else is it? It's not a nothing, it's a life!

Abortion is very close to murder, in my opinion. It's a selfish way out to an inconvenient situation. Especially when there are so many people who can't have children and would love to adopt a newborn.

Is a zygote a baby? Of course it isn't.

An embryo is a collection of cells at an early stage of animal development , No heart, limbs, eyes, nervous or circulatory system.

Is it always selfish? No, there are often circumstances when it is better that the child is not born.



A glimpse into our common ancestry

It is a collection of human cells- the beginning of life. It's how we all began. I'm not talking about animals here, I'm talking about human beings!

[fretslider]

May 17, 2009 14:11:18 GMT @mindy said:

May 17, 2009 14:08:04 GMT fretslider said:

Is a zygote a baby? Of course it isn't.

An embryo is a collection of cells at an early stage of animal development , No heart, limbs, eyes, nervous or circulatory system.

Is it always selfish? No, there are often circumstances when it is better that the child is not born.



A glimpse into our common ancestry

It is a collection of human cells- the beginning of life. It's how we all began. I'm not talking about animals here, I'm talking about human beings!

So what exactly is Homo sapiens, then?

[riotgrrl]

May 17, 2009 13:41:13 GMT @mindy said:

May 17, 2009 6:13:23 GMT @skylark said:

Do you think that an embryo is a baby, Random Voice?

If I did, I certainly wouldn't be in favour of legalising early abortion.

RG, I'm not denying that abortion is damaging for some women, but the recent research I've seen shows that most women suffer no ill effects at all.

Yes, an embryo is OBVIOUSLY a baby! What else is it? It's not a nothing, it's a life!

Abortion is very close to murder, in my opinion. It's a selfish way out to an inconvenient situation. Especially when there are so many people who can't have children and would love to adopt a newborn.

Of course an embryo is not a baby.

If a baby dies, there is an enquiry. If a woman miscarries an embryo in the early stages of pregnancy, it's considered a health issue for the woman alone.

[Deleted]

Leaving aside the legal definition, I don't think an embryo is a human being in any way shape of form. A fully formed animal is more like a fully formed person than an embryo, especially if it shares most of its DNA with humans.

The idea of anti-abortionists scoffing Kentucky Fried Chicken sickens me, I'm afraid, for I fail to see how someone who apparently cares about "life" can be so condoning of suffering. And let's face it, an aborted embryo does not suffer.

[Liberator]

I see your point, skylark but I see a different more important point. That is, the one thing women can do that men cannot is to have children. The one thing that society ignores as a right to support is to have children. Anti-abortionists like to pretend that allowing women to bear children and supporting them is some sinister plot that the dominant Patriarchs they like to wish they could be enforce upon women, but a moment's reflection shows that it is men usually expected to pay for women's children and looking after children takes women out of the labour market, and having children something that women can do that men can't, so all sexist argument runs that if some sinister dominant patriarchy sought to 'control' women's fertility, it would seek to prevent women from having priorities for children instead of employment to fit the male standard, it would seek to force women into the same expectations as men, it would seek to exclude men from valuing children and family above commitment to commercial employment and to bring women into line. Any such 'Patriarchy' would do exactly as modern feminists do and order women to abort their pregnancies so they can fit the masculine standard. Feminists fantasise a 'Patriarchy' because they believe in sexist values we thought we had liberated ourselves from with their fantasy of the Dominant Male they wish so much to be, that both sexes tried to liberated themselves from 40 years ago. These reactionaries follow as Reagan and Thatcher commanded them while pretending to be the opposite. It is only on internet boards that they can be found, along with the rest of the tin hat, Illuminati, End-times loony brigade who can't get a hearing in real conversation. Animal Farm said it all.

[Deleted]

Some bits of that sound a bit confused, ratarsed

Ignoring the bit about feminists (as I always do) I'm sure that in the past patriarchy played some part in prohibiting abortion. After all, throughout history a man's driving need is to reproduce so he will want to ensure that the vessel for his seed does not take it upon herself to eliminate it.

[Liberator]

If it sounds confused, read it again. If men have a driving need to reproduce, aren't women equal? They have the pregnancy within a much more limitted time, so surely their need must be even more driving? If you have an ability, do you suppress it?

Of course you ignore anything I say about Feminists because to you they are beyond assessment, like the Priesthood to Catholics and the Party to Communists. No matter how many individuals prove to be false, there is always an Ideal beyond the individual to question. Patriarchy demands abortion so that women may serve just like men. It is Matriarchy that supports women's right to bear children against patriarchal demand to get rid of them and serve just like men. Stamping you foot and say Won't hear anything against feminists is just the kind of juvenile behaviour feminist misogynists rely on to keep men subservient in traditional roles and suppress liberal female alternatives to force women into the same. It just happens that our society is turning much more the other way against feminist repression, to increase maternity and paternity leave and make employers take notice of women's traditional commitments and to allow men the same, instead of suppressing women as inferior the way Thatcherite 'feminists' demanded. Nobody wants the 1950s except feminists.

BTW if those drawings are Ernst Haeckel, he fudged it. It is true that embryos share a lot in common but not as much as he pretended. It is also accepted today that human evolution does not succeed in the order Monkey, Orang-Utan, Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Negro, Oriental, European, German as he wrote it.

[Deleted]

Ratarsed, you have got it wrong. I most certainly do accept criticism against (some) feminists - it is a word I never use to describe myself largely because it encompasses many different viewpoints. There are some people who post as feminists on these boards whose views I totally reject.

It is just that the people you describe as feminists are not feminists in my book, and if they desribe themselves as such they have some funny ideas about the woman's movement!

Yes, the woman's instinct to reproduce is just as strong as the man's: "nature's trick" as a woman of my acquaintance once called it.

In the animal kingdom, the male sex drive is not just limited to the act of fornication; it is all tied up with the need to pass on his genes rather than another male's. So the protection of his embryo is all-important. Some anthropologists say that is the reason women were not usually the hunters or warriors; the whole tribe recognised that their role in preserving the family was too important to risk their lives and the lives of their unborn.

[riotgrrl]

May 26, 2009 6:15:49 GMT @skylark said:

Some anthropologists say that is the reason women were not usually the hunters or warriors; the whole tribe recognised that their role in preserving the family was too important to risk their lives and the lives of their unborn.

An alternative theory I once read: The men were the hunters and would disappear for days on end to catch the meat, bring it home, feast on it for days, and so on.

Whereas, the children actually needed to eat every day, so the work of the women in gathering berries and basic agriculture was the stuff that actually sustained the tribe, while what the men did was the gravy and circus stuff.

[Liberator]

May 26, 2009 6:15:49 GMT @skylark said:

Ratarsed, you have got it wrong. I most certainly do accept criticism against (some) feminists - it is a word I never use to describe myself largely because it encompasses many different viewpoints. There are some people who post as feminists on these boards whose views I totally reject.

It is just that the people you describe as feminists are not feminists in my book, and if they desribe themselves as such they have some funny ideas about the woman's movement!

Absolutely! But if they call themselves 'feminists', if they claim to post 'feminist' ideals, if they throw tantrums at my opposition to what they call 'patriarchy' on grounds that I am being hostile to 'feminists', if they are what people generally think of when 'feminist' is mentioned, who am I to say they are not feminists? I did in fact start from that position, that what was representing itself as 'feminist' was a reaction against a 'true feminism'. I still take that view but I've adopted their own terminology of '3rd wave' and '2nd wave' 'feminism'.

It's the old 'Communist' and 'Christian' argument: "It wasn't Communists who murdered millions, it was Stalin and Mao betraying Communism; it wasn't Christians massacring and torturing, it was Churches betraying Christianity". Maybe true enough compared to some Platonic ideal, but we have never seen this Platonic ideal. Meanwhile we do see their history and their demands and the abuses that continue in their name. So do we follow their propaganda and pretend that every criticism of their actuality condemns ideals quite opposite to that actuality?

I have links to 'feminist' sites to see how they totally oppose these sub-BBC Feminists but what is the point of arguing terminology with people who slither past linkage to any specific view so that they can condemn and can name anything they like in the name of 'feminism', with responses like 'Feminism is a broad church', 'Feminism believes in equality of the sexes'? They might as well say 'Feminism is a Good Thing'. I wish I had bookmarked (and probably have but I use some six browsers on two systems as three different users and they don't all talk to each other) a 'feminist' blog that starts of "Feminism is for ... " and continues with a list of just about every person conceivable. Well big deal: all that says is that 'feminism' is anything at all that anybody wants to say it is. Therefore it is no-thing, nothing, has no meaning because it has every meaning.

Yes, the woman's instinct to reproduce is just as strong as the man's: "nature's trick" as a woman of my acquaintance once called it.

In the animal kingdom, the male sex drive is not just limited to the act of fornication; it is all tied up with the need to pass on his genes rather than another male's. So the protection of his embryo is all-important. Some anthropologists say that is the reason women were not usually the hunters or warriors; the whole tribe recognised that their role in preserving the family was too important to risk their lives and the lives of their unborn.

I'll certainly agree with your last point. The truth is that one male can fertilise an awful lot of females, so males are expendable. I'd say the whole of civilisation developed from the need to protect vulnerable infants and nursing mothers. As savages have always said, civilisation is a feminine project.

I do not buy your point about protecting his genes. He does not know whether he is the father or not. Today there seems to be no society unaware of a connection between sex and birth, though human reproductivity is so low that it is not obvious, and some (leastwise in the 1930s) had some very odd ideas. Much more obviously, the female has a drive to reproduce that includes sexual desire more than necessarily resulting from it. So she is more selective about her choice. I wouldn't say her reproductive drive is 'as strong as' the man's at all, I'd see it as much stronger.

Therefore, abortion is interference in a natural female activity. I would think of it as the only real difference between the sexes and their abilities: I'm a great believer in cultural behaviour as Nurture over Nature. There are occasions when this interference is desirable, but also occasions when we have to ask whether it is being done to fit the woman to a society that feminists all seem to agree on calling 'patriarchy' because that society refuses to value this female ability on a par with the money-making activities traditionally undertaken by men because they lack this ability, or to change its organisation to support it.

Yesterday, some woman was decrying 'inequality' that of executives, some half of men have children but only 10% of women. That misses the point: those men do not have children, their wife does. The inequality lies in the job taking precedence over the domestic life it is supposed to provide for. It is far easier for men to give this domestic life up than it is for women. The equality is not for women to have to give it up too, to be like men, it is for the job demand to let men regain their humanity and be like women. "The Sabbath exists for Man, not Man for the Sabbath" - Institutions are created by people for people, not imposed rigidly by an implacable deity.

It is very easy to go from allowing women the freedom to get rid of an awkward pregnancy to then making all pregnancies awkward by saying there is no need for child support or any other services - if she can't afford it, can get a man to provide or get rid of it and get to work. We have already seen allowing women to work the same as men has become requirement to work as hard as men, not more freedom for men to be in the home because an increased work force means less demand on all. I have also seen the spluttering hostility of these feminists to any suggestion that men should value and participate in women's traditional domestic activities regardless of the number of women who downright expect equality in the home as much as men expect their wife to have a job.