So I was reading news website headlines today when I came across this: "NBC/WSJ poll: Majority, for first time, want abortion to be legal" and it seems to be getting some attention, and I expect it to get more.
Which I gotta say was a bit of a shock, you see 7 months ago I saw this headline over on Gallup "Pro-Choice" Americans at Record-Low 41%" and it did get ALOT of attention.
Ok so we are talking about at least 10 point swing in favor of pro choice in about 7 months. No matter if your pro life or pro choice, you gotta admit that sounds a bit fishy. So what the hell happened?
Word games, plain and simple.
See in the gallop poll people were asked in the headline question to identify themselves as pro-life (41%) or pro-choice (50%), in the NBC poll they were asked to pick a position on abortion.
Now actually as it turns out, if you look at positions on abortion, things are basically unchanged (which Gallup also asked in later questions)
now to be fair its not quite a fair comparison (for a reason I get to in a second), but still here are the numbers:
Abortion should be legal in all circumstances Gallup said 25%, NBC said 31%
Abortion should be depends on circumstances Gallup said 52%, NBC said 58%
Abortion should be illegal in all circumstances Gallup said 20%, NBC said 9%.
Now the reason its not quite a fair comparison is this, in the Gallup poll you were only given 3 options (the middle being "legal with exceptions"), in the NBC poll they split the middle option into legal in some circumstances (23%) and illegal with exceptions in some circumstances (35%) which I combined into the middle option, and my guess is that illegal with exception option pulled a few people out of "illegal side" on the NBC poll.
For the record though, NBC got their headline by combining the legal in all and legal in some numbers on one side, and the illegal in some illegal in all numbers on the other, so they dont have to worry about "pulling people across the line".
Now the thing is, if you note the combined numbers (with above disclaimer) in both polls, you see the same thing....the majority of the country basically agrees on abortion. In that most people running around (myself included) think its insane to allow a expecting mother who is 8 months 3 weeks and 6 days (and yes I realize its not exactly 9 months still for examples sake) to get an abortion, for any reason.
On the flipside an even fewer people running around think its a great idea to do nothing and allow a woman to die just because something is wrong with her fetus and killing the fetus is the only way to save her.
All we are fighting over are a handful of minor exceptions and the right legal wording (legal with exceptions or illegal with exceptions)/do we allow for contingencies we didnt put in the law, once thats been ironed out.
The reason that abortion is still the grade A number 1 issue in this country, is because that answer doesnt fit the binary system we like to pretend exists for issues.
Allowing abortion in some cases and not others is not a pro life position, cause in some cases its ok to end life. So pro lifers are hypocrites
Allowing abortions in some cases and not in others is not a pro choice position, cause sometimes you dont have the right to make a choice. So pro choicers are hypocrites
So it doesnt fit with either side, and for what ever reason the fact that when offered a choice between black and white picks gray, continues to confuse the political and media world, and also allows them to set up dueling headlines such as I started with.
But the fact remains that even with an arguable shift towards 100% pro choice between the polls (5%) once factored into the margin of error (3%) its not significant [yet]. So the american people are exactly where they were on abortion last year, and likely were they are going to stay.
But that cant be spun into a story. it may be closer to true, and a whole lot less word gamey, but wheres the fun in that?
its much more fun shoe-horning most americans into a side they dont actually belong on, rather then actually develop the 3rd side of the issue the "lets talk about this reasonably, cause we are only about this far apart" side
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