The percentage of Americans identifying as “pro-choice” has been steadily decreasing in recent years, and this year is no exception. Gallup found that just 41 percent now say they are pro-choice – a record low – while 50 percent identify as pro-life.
But as Adam Serwer points out, that isn’t the whole story. The majority of Americans, 52 percent, still say that abortion should be legal “under certain circumstances,” which many pro-life activists would find unacceptable. From the Gallup survey:
Gallup’s longest-running measure of abortion views, established in 1975, asks Americans if abortion should be legal in all circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances. Since 2001, at least half of Americans have consistently chosen the middle position, saying abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, and the 52 percent saying this today is similar to the 50 percent in May 2011. The 25 percent currently wanting abortion to be legal in all cases and the 20 percent in favor of making it illegal in all cases are also similar to last year’s findings.
“Certain circumstances” is incredibly vague. Is it saving the life of the mother (which some pro-life activists support)? Cases of rape or incest? Allowing it during the early stages of pregnancy? Without knowing the breakdown, we can’t tell whether their views fall closer to the pro-life or the pro-choice position.
Many pro-choice activists argue that any legal restrictions on abortion are unacceptable, and that the decision should be left completely up to a woman and her doctor. If you believe life doesn’t begin until birth – or that the question of when life begins is completely subjective – then there should be no moral qualms about what happens to a fetus at any point of the pregnancy.
The fact that the majority of Americans say there should be some restrictions on abortion means they do have those moral qualms. Maybe some of them aren’t sure whether life starts at conception, but believe it does begin at some point early on in the pregnancy. Or maybe some believe life starts at conception, but that taking this life is necessary in some rare and horrible circumstances. Either way, the fact that more Americans identify as pro-life seems to be a rejection of the pro-choice movement’s nonchalant — and sometimes almost celebratory — view of abortion. The majority of Americans might support abortion in certain cases, but it’s likely to be something they grapple with morally.
Yup, most people don't know how permissive our abortion laws are.
As I recall, the last time I checked, opposition to abortion in the 2nd trimester was about 60% and 90% opposed abortion in the 3rd trimester. Only in the case of first trimester did a majority support a right to abortion. nI'm pretty certain that those numbers have been consistent over the years. Not exactly what a pro-choice advocate like Serwer would like to admit. nAnd as you note, the pro-choice community has no qualms and doesn't believe that anyone should have qualms about abortion. That's where there's a disconnect between the pro-choice crowd and America as a whole.
Is it not so that the common sense of plain people over the centuries has been that there is such a thing as "quickening" or "ensoulment" that takes place somewhere in the middle of a pregnancy? And that before that the fetus is alive and biologically human but not a "person" in either a legal or a religious sense, whereas afterwards it is? In modern terms we can look at this as a time when society's respect for the dignity and privacy of the mother transitions into respect for the dignity of the new life. The fact that there is no single magic moment when this happens does not mean that it doesn't happen. But it does mean that we should show some humility in addressing the question, and perhaps that different people and different states may come in good will to differing conclusions and should be free to institute differing regimes.
I am waiting for the male Roe case –and that sould make things interesting. n
The chilling case that could well happen — and almost did in Massachusetts — is one where the mental health laws are used to force a woman to have an abortion that she does not wish to have. Eventually there won't be an appeals court with enough of a solid head to realize what some schmuck of a judge down below has approved, and there will be the forcible non-consensual abortion and the American public will truly freak out over this. n nIt is either going to be this or a right to suicide that leads to Roe being overturned, Roe argues that a woman has the benefit of a "penumbra" of privacy that enables her to kill her baby without governmental oversight — why doesn't that right extend to the right to kill *herself* as well? n nSomeone involuntarily committed to a psych ward, arguing that "I haven't yet attempted suicide, and I have a right to privacy" — and the courts having to both uphold the power of the state to commit her without this, while also upholding her right to an abortion and that will quickly get quite convoluted….