Americans now tilt "pro-life" by nine-point margin, 50% to 41%
by Lydia Saad
PRINCETON, NJ -- The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as "pro-choice" is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009. Fifty percent now call themselves "pro-life," one point shy of the record high, also from May 2009.
interesting. I wonder if the poll just wanted a "yes or no" type of answer. I am pro-life, but not anti-abortion.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx for methods and questions.
In this case, the question was "With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself pro-choice or pro-life?"
This addresses the grey area a bit better:
This. I think a lot of abortions are unnecessary and unfortunate. However, taking the option off the table entirely is idiotic.
I know what you are saying but just for the sake of argument...
Pro-life is generally considered to be the belief that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances without exception.
You are pro-choice.
Your choice is not to have one.
I think the pro-life crowd should here after be referred to as "anti-choice".
I am anti-abortion, but I agree with BYW. Making it illegal entirely wouldn't work and would be enormously counter-productive. I would like to see this issue decided upon a state-by-state basis, with each state choosing whatever solution they are comfortable with.
Just as Pro-Choice isn't defined as narrowly as Pro-Abortion, Pro-Life is not as defined as narrowly as Anti-Abortion. Since Pro-Choice is generally attached with the concept that a woman has a right to do anything she wants with her body some of us do not want to associate with such a broad definition and consider ourselves pro-life (which BTW, can include the survival of the mother) even though we do not support complete prohibition.
If we can call the pro-Choice crowd "abortion-nazis" I'll settle for that 
Q,
Thank you for illustrating a point not made clear in the article but expressed fully on the site in the follow up to the poll results.
The "labels" people apply to themselves have changed...
Their opinions have not.
I agree with that, which is why I posted the breakdown that I did. I think I would be in that 52% group and have no problem with that.
It's really a complex issue that really requires more than two labels to really understand another person's view on it. In person if this comes up I ask a few follow-up questions before jumping into anything.
I know you are just trying to bring "humor" to the subject...
But that is not the way to do it.
Until such time as all women are required by the force and power of the State to submit to an abortion the term nazi is uncalled for.
Very near the reason I offered another label... anti-choice.
For the record... I do not believe anyone can be called "pro-abortion".
(not and retain the classification as human)
Then let's leave all the rancor should be left at the doorstep:
Until such time as all women are required by the force and power of the State to become pregnant, the anti-choice is also uncalled for. In the vast majority of abortion cases, the woman chooses to engage in behavior that could result in pregnancy, to say that they made no choice in that decision is to imply they were all raped. The majority of pro-lifers will accept abortion in cases of rape, incest or when the mother is at risk.
There are some I do think fit the bill, Margaret Sanger and other eugenics for example. Using abortion as a tool to manipulate birth rates on any basis, much less a racial ones is abhorrent. Others who try to sell abortion as a safe alternative to giving birth (http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/womens-health/articles/2012/01/23/abortion-safer-for-women-than-childbirth-study-claims) also tread into this category.
Much as the violent anti-abortionists are a small minority in the pro-life movement and are properly condemned by the majority of pro-lifers, the eugenicists are a small (and yet somehow accepted) sub-set of the Pro-Choice movement.
How gracious of them.
It's not enough that they can choose for themselves... they are undeniably attempting to force their beliefs into legislation.
If they had their way they would not have to accept anything because abortion would be illegal... across the board. There would be no choice.
Ergo: anti-choice.
Before we dispose of all rancor I welcome you to legitimize
.
We have discussed Margaret Sanger before... in depth.
There are different interpretations to a perticular quote. You choose the more damning.
Let me take this opportunity to remind you of a couple facts...
First, you have the modern knowledge and understanding of genetics and heredity that was not available at the turn of the 20th century.
Second, at that time eugenics was not only practiced but officially supported by governments around the country and world. It was the rule... not the exception... and practiced by some states into the 1960's.
Third, Sanger was not as much a eugenicist as was the case she found some common ground with them. Her primary objective was to control pregnancies, not aborting them. Forgetting that the "belief" in question is almost 100 years old it's not hard to see in todays world of guilt by association... i.e. Obama/ Wright... how you come up with abortion-nazi.
On the surface I would agree with you.
However... I read the article. The problem is that your perspective causes you to see things that are not there.
The word "alternative" never apperars in the article. Abortion is not being "sold" as such... except perhaps in your head.
The article is about the risk of death associated with full term pregnancy vs. risk of death associated with legal abortions.
The conclusion is that abortion is statistically safer than carrying to term. Period.
The article follows up with the requirements in many states for a woman to recieve counciling and/ or literature before recieving an abortion and how much of the information recieved is not factually correct. The result is women being scared and intimidated by misleading rhetoric.
Nowhere does the article suggest that abortion is better. It is not being sold and it is the fact that you take that stance that makes these discussions difficult.
According to the polling data that fits 20% of respondents. That's not even close to a majority of those that are pro-life. Now, if you want to lump them into there own group and go to town, knock yourself out.
As for forcing there beliefs into legislation, if you really believe, as I do, that that is wrong then I expect to see at least some condemnation of leftists like Obama and Bloomberg that are forcing their beliefs onto us through legislation, removing and restricting the rights we have to to what we want to our bodies.
Sanger spoke at length about the issue.
"We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with
social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most
successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal.
We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro
population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if
it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."
-- Margaret Sanger's December 19, 1939 letter to Dr. Clarence Gamble, 255
Adams Street, Milton, Massachusetts. Original source: Sophia Smith
Collection, Smith College, North Hampton, Massachusetts. Also described in
Linda Gordon's Woman's Body, Woman's Right: A Social History of Birth
Control in America . New York: Grossman Publishers, 1976.
"Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying
... demonstrates our foolhardy and extravagant sentimentalism ...
[Philanthropists] encourage the healthier and more normal sections of the
world to shoulder the burden of unthinking and indiscriminate fecundity of
others; which brings with it, as I think the reader must agree, a dead
weight of human waste. Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the
stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world,
it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant ... We are paying
for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing,
unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born
at all."
-- Margaret Sanger. The Pivot of Civilization , 1922. Chapter on "The
Cruelty of Charity," pages 116, 122, and 189. Swarthmore College Library
edition.
"Today eugenics is suggested by the most diverse minds as the most
adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and
social problems.
"I think you must agree ... that the campaign for birth control is not
merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims
of eugenics ... Birth control propaganda is thus the entering wedge for the
eugenic educator.
"As an advocate of birth control I wish ... to point out that the
unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' admittedly
the greatest present menace to civilization, can never be rectified by the
inauguration of a cradle competition between these two classes. In this
matter, the example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feebleminded,
the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken classes, should not be
held up for emulation.
"On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and
discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."
-- Margaret Sanger. "The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda."
Birth Control Review , October 1921, page 5.
"Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population
their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization."
-- Margaret Sanger, April 1932 Birth Control Review .
"The third group [of society] are those irresponsible and reckless
ones having little regard for the consequences of their acts, or whose
religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers.
Many of this group are diseased, feeble-minded, and are of the pauper
element dependent upon the normal and fit members of society for their
support. There is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the
procreation of this group should be stopped."
-- Margaret Sanger. Speech quoted in Birth Control: What It Is, How It
Works, What It Will Do. The Proceedings of the First American Birth
Control Conference . Held at the Hotel Plaza, New York City, November 11-
12, 1921. Published by the Birth Control Review , Gothic Press, pages 172
and 174.
"In passing, we should here recognize the difficulties presented by the
idea of 'fit' and 'unfit.' Who is to decide this question? The grosser,
the more obvious, the undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be
discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind. But among the
writings of the representative Eugenists [sic], one cannot ignore the
distinct middle-class bias that prevails."
-- Margaret Sanger, quoted in Charles Valenza. "Was Margaret Sanger a
Racist?" Family Planning Perspectives , January-February 1985, page 44.
"Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race."
-- Margaret Sanger. Woman, Morality, and Birth Control . New York: New
York Publishing Company, 1922. Page 12.
"There is only one reply to a request for a higher birthrate among the
intelligent, and that is to ask the government to first take the burden of
the insane and feeble-minded from your back. [Mandatory] sterilization for
these is the answer."
-- Margaret Sanger, October 1926 Birth Control Review .
"[Slavs, Latin, and Hebrew immigrants are] human weeds ... a
deadweight of human waste ... [Blacks, soldiers, and Jews are a] menace to
the race."
"Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must prevent
Multiplication of this bad stock."
-- Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review .
"[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden
of unwanted children ... [Women must have the right] to live ... to love
... to be lazy ... to be an unmarried mother ... to create ... to destroy
... The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order
... The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members
is to kill it."
-- Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel , Volume I, Number 1.
Reprinted in Woman and the New Race . New York: Brentanos Publishers,
1922.
It amazes me that when Mitt Romney uses the term 'tar baby' he is a racist, but when someone addresses the KKK regularly and refers to immigrants and blacks as "...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." she is just being taken out of context. Amazing.
Hitler was just misunderstood then?
Nor does it address the emotional damage and the potential long term fertility risks to the women. By ignoring all but one risk it promoted the idea that abortion is nothing to worry about. It is just another step toward normalizing the idea of terminating pregnancy, but since you already hold those views you are unwilling to acknowledge the constant push to make abortion 'just another choice'.
Not for the baby! Oh, I'm sorry... not for the nonviable fetal mass!
Abortion increases risk of mental health problems, new research finds
lol, seriously?? There is guaranteed death in every abortion, 100% rate. What is the death rate in full term pregnancies???
And I'm not suprised that the very first quote you use is the one I was referencing.
What amazes me is you comparing something said recently by a Presidential candidate to things said almost 100 years ago by a woman promoting birth control.
As I stated earlier...
Her views were in line with the worldview at the time.
If you can not (or is it will not?) make the distinction... genocide vs. controlling the birthrate of targeted groups... then I am not sure if any of your views can be trusted. (which would be a shame because you sometimes do offer something of value)
Such as...
If you are doing a study on the death rate cause by tire blowouts on the nations highways are you going to include statistics on physical damage to the car or the cost of repairing guardrails?
or...
It promoted the idea?
Did you read the article?
Because the quotes from Dr. Donna Harrison, director of research and public policy at the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists would seem to negate that statement.
blah blah blah...
What I am unwilling to do is continue climbing that wall.
Tell us again why we can not have nice things.
12 other quotes there. But let's just get stuck on just that one and say 'it's out of context'.
So no more bitching that some of the Founding Fathers owned slaves, or about the native American slaughter, or the evils of Christopher Columbus or the hundreds of historical events condemned in modern terms?
If a idea is wrong, it's wrong. Saying that she was part of the in-crowd at the time is a pretty weak cop-out. Look how much the topic of Romney's dog has been brought up without any context to what life was like in the early 80's or that many people did much worse to animals and it never raised an eyebrow.
Hitler wanted to perfect the human race through eugenics, that he decided to kill millions after they were born rather than while still in the womb is a matter of semantics. Sanger and Hitler had the same goal, does it really matter how they wanted to achieve it if it's wrong?
If you wanted to compare the safety rating of a set of tires I would think you'd include the effects they have on the suspension system, accidents caused by loosing control of a vehicle, and whether they could hold air, not just how many times the tire blew out and killed someone...
Though if you were just looking for death rates, you should also count the passengers as well as the drivers.
Dr. Donna Harrison, director of research and public policy at the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, disagreed with the authors' conclusions. This study's findings are "speculation," she said.
"Abortion mortality is not systematically collected. What Dr. Grimes' paper most clearly illustrates is the immediate need for reporting requirements for abortion deaths in all 50 states," Harrison said.
"Abortion carries significant risks to the mother in addition to death, and women need to have good and accurate information," Harrison said. "Since we don't have an objective academic format yet, the information provided should probably be left up to the state medical boards and agreed to by the state legislature."
She is a dissenting opinion, of course she would speak against the findings, in fact she thinks the study does leave out other risks. In other words, she agrees with me, not the proponents of the study's findings.
Ok, let me simplify this concept for you. Julia prefers the cold. Her house is set to 50 degrees and she wears a light jacket in the middle of winter. When she's at work where the temperature is set to 68 degrees and the furnace stops working, do you think she is going to notice the temperature change as soon as others in the room? Do you think it will even concern her?
You hold a specific view, so things that support that view will naturally seem more comfortable and normal even if that view deviates from the existing norm. If someone was going to raise a Maypole in the center of Plymouth I would be happy, and not at all concerned yet the Christan population would likely have a melt-down because it is not something that has occurred before and, like Julia's boss who likes the temp at 75, will notice the change right away.
But whatever. You started with this with a disparaging remark so why would it be expected to get any better from there. Continue climbing if you wish, just stop complaining about the heights.
Excuse me?
Did I say that?
Sure.
Not difficult as I have not broached any of those subjects.
Murder and manslaughter achieve the same results.
Are they the same?
Yes, the difference does matter.
Funny... I still can not find that reference.
As I can not find where she says the study leaves anything out I will simply see your statement as self-serving.
There are no other words.
That was not my proposal. Blowouts can have many more causes than the safety of a particular tire. By not including or considering such things as road debris, reckless driving, vandalism...
Just another example of only seeing a larger picture when and how it suits your needs.
Really?
That can only refer to "anti-choice".
If you call that a disparaging remark... while you have still not offered any justification for your own "abortion nazi" dig... you are a sad and twisted individual.
Just because you bend in the opposite direction do not believe that you are any more flexible than I am. So...
Do not forget to dress yourself in the comment as you try to pin it on others.
No. Because she has a level of tolerance that others apparently do not.
She prefers not to work in 68 degrees, but she does not want to impose her own comfort upon those around her. She understands the needs of others may outweigh her own.
Yes.
But the difference between murder and manslaughter is intent. The point is they both had the same intent/goals but different methods. BTW, both murder and manslaughter are wrong and both get you sent to jail for quite a while.
Here, I'll help you:
This study's findings are "speculation," she said.
What Dr. Grimes' paper most clearly illustrates is the immediate need for reporting requirements for abortion deaths in all 50 states
Abortion carries significant risks to the mother in addition to death, and women need to have good and accurate information," Harrison said. "Since we don't have an objective academic format yet
I justify it as the same type of unhelpful hyperbole that the "anti-choice" remark was which was the entire premise of it's use.
"I think the pro-life crowd should here after be referred to as "anti-choice""
"If we can call the pro-Choice crowd "abortion-nazis" I'll settle for that "
In other words, if you want to make idiotic generalizations, so can I.
Did I not include a specifically self-serving reference in my remarks? (Hint: Maypole)
How very libertarian of her! You could learn a thing or two.
