The abortion debate is a shape-shifter, its contours twisted by politics, culture, timing and the very language pollsters use when they ask people how they feel. So when the folks at Gallup announced that, for the first time, more Americans are pro-life than pro-choice, there were all kinds of ways to misunderstand what that means.


First and foremost are the labels, which cloud the issue by oversimplifying it - that's why the advocates picked them. Most people are neither pro-choice nor pro-life, but both; we cherish life, we value choice, and we trade them off with great reluctance. Good luck explaining that to someone who is politely requesting a binary answer over the phone. (See more about abortion.)


But if we place any stock at all in those labels, something dramatic has happened. In 1995, when Gallup started asking the question, the split was 56-33 in favor of abortion rights. Now the lines have crossed, and 51% call themselves pro-life while only 42% say they are pro-choice. It's a shift that stretches past personal convictions and into legal constraints. For 35 years, a majority of Americans have wanted abortion to be, essentially, legal with limits. But the movement toward greater restraint is clear. In the mid-'90s, when pro-choice forces were especially dominant, only 12% believed abortion was always wrong; now that number has nearly doubled. At each extreme, slightly more people now believe abortion should be illegal under all circumstances (23%) than legal under all circumstances (22%). (See a TIME graphic on the growth of crisis pregnancy centers.)


So what has changed? Gallup attributes the new numbers to Republicans' purifying their views: 70% now call themselves pro-life, up 10 points in a year. But that's to be expected; when fewer people call themselves Republican, the party condenses into a pool of true believers. It's the people in the middle who are constantly weighing which restrictions are reasonable. A new Pew poll finds that while a majority of independents said abortion should be legal in most cases as recently as October, just 44% do so now. This may inspire some introspection on the part of political operatives in both parties who attribute the Republicans' present frailty to its orthodoxy on social issues. The GOP may have fielded some hapless messengers, but their message, on abortion at least, may be closer to the mainstream than Democrats care to acknowledge.


I think the numbers, inadequate and simplified though they may be, reflect deeper changes - some generational, some legal, some technological. People under 30 are more opposed to abortion than those who are older, perhaps because their first baby pictures were often taken in utero. I also wonder 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. The calculation of rights subtly shifts, and the fetus, as it develops, asserts its claim on the conscience.


Of course, anti-abortion activists have worked hard to make the issue more intimate. Nebraska is the latest state to debate what activists call "window to the womb" laws, which require that women be shown an ultrasound of the fetus before going ahead with an abortion. The Missouri Senate just passed a bill that would require doctors to talk about a fetus' development and its ability to feel pain. Opponents of "informed consent" laws that talk about fetal pain warn that doing so just causes the woman pain, and call it emotional blackmail. But there is no denying that the battleground has shifted. (Read "The Grass-Roots Abortion War.")


As, most obviously, has the political context. Abortion has forever been blown by electoral trade winds; when the right was in charge, people feared the return of coat hangers in back alleys. Now that the left leads, they fear abortion on demand. 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.


The President appeared to understand this when he spoke at Notre Dame's commencement, addressing the possibility of common ground and the need for "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words." Protesters were gathered outside; the issue of a Catholic university honoring a pro-choice President had roiled the campus for weeks. But rather than defend his position on the issue or even explain it, Obama talked about how to talk about it. "I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away," he said. "Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature." (See the top 10 commencement speeches of all time.)


You can tell Obama isn't interested in a culture war. He has left gay marriage to the states, dropped family-planning money from the stimulus bill, refused to fund needle-exchange programs and said he wants to "tamp down some of the anger" surrounding the abortion debate. He is inviting all sides to the White House to discuss ways to reduce the number of abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies.


My theory? People always apply the brakes to whichever side has the momentum. The stakes are too high, the pain too private, whatever decision a woman makes, to see the issue treated as an ideological toy or fundraising tool. 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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090518/us_time/08599189914300;_ylt=
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I didnt realize there was a shift!

HMmmmmmm

Yep, Obama is prostituting, as usual.

That whore!

My personal theory on the shift is this.

There are many of us who are clearly personally pro-life who vote for choice. You know...those of us who believe abortion is wrong but who who would not presume to criminalize the choice for others.

Then there is this...this is the bit that worries me.

Many young people have little or no idea what the reality of illegal abortion is. I clearly remember what it was like when I was a young girl and abortion was illegal.

Women still had abortions...the key difference between then and now is that women with money had medically safe, clean and discrete abortions while poor women took their chances. Don't tell me I am talking poop. I saw it.

So the reality of criminalizing abortion is lost for many because during their life times it has been readily and safely available.

Guess what? If you think abortion is wrong...by all means..don't have one.

well said lynann. and you are not wrong about what it was like when it was illegal

the shift is from so many being mingle2 readers


and have been reading my posts on the abortion issue


over the last 6 months or so


yeah thats it


gotta be

My opinion has never shifted. Wouldn't chose it for myself but I don't have the right to take that choice from someone else. I've always felt this way an don't see ever changin.

I agree I wouldn't chose it for myself but who am I to say what others should or shouldn't do

Lynann's right. I don't forget what it used to be like. I lived in a college dorm when I was young. There were young girls there and they were afraid and alone and away from home. I remember the attempted hangar abortion and a girl being rushed to the ER. We never saw her again.

I, too, would not choose abortion for myself. It's not my place to take that choice away from somebody else though.

well i would never have an abortion neither

but to be honest it is not up to me what another does

my argument is an exercise in academics

not necessarily how i feel

as i have said in the past i really don't care as it does not effect me personally

It bears mentioning as well that the Gallup poll that showed 51% of Americans calling themselves pro-life has a 3% margin of error and was a sampling of a mere 1,015 people.

Not all those describing themselves of pro-life favor making abortion illegal and in fact say abortion should be legal in some cases.

Fifty-three percent of those who responded in fact said that abortion should be legal in some cases. That number is virtually unchanged from ten years ago.

There are wise, caring, faithful,intelligent and responsible people on both sides of the issue who disagree deeply.

Don't believe in abortion?

Don't have one!

Care about life? Demonstrate that in your personal conduct. Don't have an abortion.

Are you pro-life? Do you care about the lives of people already here? If you are pro-life do take care of and educate children, oppose the death penalty and war?

Oh...the names of these camps always bothered me. It real should be pro-choice and anti-choice.

Here's another little peeve of mine. Many of the same people who oppose what they perceive as government intervention in other areas of their lives are the same ones who oppose choice. Don't tell me what kind or how many guns I can own...but I am going to tell you not only what your doctor can talk about in the privacy of their office with you I am also going to limit or eliminate your medical options.

Some people...*sigh*

like Rush says...if theres nothing wrong with it...well....here's straight from yesterdays show...

Obama at Notre Dame yesterday says that everybody on this debate is decent and we gotta work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, is he not admitting there's something wrong about it, then? If there's nothing wrong with an unwanted pregnancy and if there's nothing wrong with abortion, why do we have to limit them?

Why do we hope it's rare, if there's nothing wrong, if it's really nothing more than an issue of liberty and freedom for women, then why do we have to make liberty and freedom rare for women? So I think he bastardizes his own argument here...

not being female and not knowing the full effects i would have to guess that an abortion can lead to physical and emotional scaring

and if one does not want a child it would be best to avoid the pregnancy than to terminate it

thus not risking the scarring mentioned above

Obama has always been a supporter with a conscience on this issue.

What that means is Abortion is messy business. It is a result of a bigger problem, birth control.

Women do not make these choices lightly unless they are mentally unwell.


The fact is that if a woman deems it is not feasible for her to bring a life into this world, she should have the choice not to.

Men do not face this dilemma so have almost no understanding of such.

If men got pregnant then this issue would have been a mute point from the beginning because men would want to be able to choose.

Very true! It should be the choice of the one who bears the problem at the moment.

In less than a month I'll be 49 yrs old. Abortions were illegal until 1973. I was not quite 13, and if not for 4 older sisters I would not have payed it much attention. My youngest sister is 6 yrs older than I.
Even though my sisters seemed concentrated upon the issue, I'll admit that I was too young for the issue to have much meaning beyond that and probably wouldn't have noticed had it not been for my sisters interest. Ironically none of them has ever sought an abortion.
Roe V Wade was the court battle which brought a change to the law. It was argued in the Supreme Court for appr 3 years.
I remember there was a television special about girls forced to have back street abortions and the dangers involved with that. Honestly I knew of no one who was forced to such extremes. Probably because girls held on to their virginity far longer in those days.
My memory of the fight to legalize abortion comes from the fact that my mother was a devote Catholic and while my sisters were raised Catholic they also were teenage girls at the peak of sexual awareness.
Two argued on my mothers side against legalized abortion and two argued against them. I now know the two who were for legalized abortion were the wilder and more promiscuous of the four.
The argument that made the biggest impression on me was one against abortions made by my mother.
She used to say, what if the child aborted was sent to save all mankind?
What if they were meant to grow up and discover the cure for diabetes, cancer, or some other terrible disease?
Now they are dead, medical waste, and the suffering of many continues!

What if abortion had existed during Moses's times and his mother had aborted him?

the are other reasons someone might want to have an abortion. It's not just a matter of promiscuity. Yes some use it as a form of birth control, but there are other scenarios and until someone is in that position...they can't say for a fact what they would do

Poppycock!

How old were you at the time?
Are you saying you were living in a college dorm at 11 or 12?

In answer to your question. Instead of Moses we would have had Dirk or whoever to tell the story.

If a person doesn't believe in abortion they, by all means, should never have one.

But they should not impose their belief onto others, it isn't right.

Actually I am sure abortion has been lessened by the morning after pill that they are handing out these days.



Until a man is able to get pregnant, endure it and birth a child his view of this whole thing is really skewed because he cannot have full understanding of the loss of control a woman feels when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. Her whole life changes, not for one year but her whole life. She should be able to have choices available to her. So she can rightly choose her path.