Gallup Poll Reflects Cultural, Political Changes In Abortion Views, Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 20 May 2009 - 2:00 PDT

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"There were all kinds of ways to misunderstand" the meaning of a recent Gallup poll that found for the first time that more U.S. residents identify themselves as "pro-life" than as "pro-choice," Time columnist Nancy Gibbs writes in an opinion piece. Gibbs writes that although Gallup "attributes the new numbers to Republicans purifying their views," that trend is "to be expected" because "when fewer people call themselves Republican, the party condenses into a pool of true believers." According to Gibbs, the real drivers of the shift are "the people in the middle who are constantly weighing which restrictions are reasonable." Gibbs notes a recent Pew poll that found that while "a majority of independents said abortion should be legal in most cases as recently as October, just 44% do so now." This finding "may inspire some introspection on the part of the political operatives in both parties who attribute the Republicans' present frailty to its orthodoxy on social issues," Gibbs says, adding that the GOP's "message, on abortion at least, may be closer to mainstream than Democrats care to acknowledge."

Gibbs continues, "I think the numbers, inadequate and simplified though they may be, reflect deeper changes -- some generational, some legal, some technological." She writes that people younger than age 30 "are more opposed to abortion than those older" and that she "wonder[s] if younger women are now sure enough of their sexual autonomy and their choices generally, that they don't view limits on abortion as attacks on their overall freedom." At the same time, "the political context" has changed, Gibbs says. She adds, "The very meaning of the labels adjusts; calling yourself pro-choice at a time when a liberal Democratic President and allies in Congress are lifting abortion restraints may imply no qualms at all, and that's not where most people are." She continues, "People always want to apply the brakes to whichever side has the momentum" because the "stakes are too high, the pain too private ... to see the issue treated as an ideological toy or fundraising tool." Gibbs concludes, "President Obama got in trouble in his talk last August with Rick Warren for saying that the question of when life begins was 'above my pay grade.' But just because he was glib doesn't mean he was wrong" (Gibbs, Time, 5/18).

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