>
>[This is an interesting tack. Normally if you ask people their
>position on abortion, the answers are ambiguous and overlapping and
>discouraging. Here, when they ask about what side they identify with
>-- pro-life or pro-choice -- and whether Roe v. Wade should be
>overturned -- the real point at issue -- the results seem
>surprisingly stark and encouraging]
>
>http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1134#prochoice
>
> Public Opinion Watch
> November 9, 2005
> Ruy Teixeira, The Century Foundation, 11/9/2005
>
><snip>
>
> It's Definitely a Pro-Choice, Pro-Roe v. Wade Country
So your subject heading was a Freudian slip?
If you force Americans to make the choice - "pro-life" or "pro-choice" - they choose choice, like the good Americans they are. But, like I told Woj yesterday, this is a split-the-difference country. On specifics, there's a strong bias to restricting abortion. So overturning Roe v. Wade, to the middle American mind, would be "radical," but so would making abortion free on demand.
For example, in a May 2003 poll, Gallup asked about circumstances under which abortion should be legal in the first and third trimesters. 82% thought abortion should be legal in the first trimester if the mother's life was endangered; 72% thought it should be legal when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest; 60% if the child would be born with a life-threatening illness; 50%, if child would be mentally disabled; 41% when the woman does not want the child for any reason.
Doug