Poll: Support for abortion drops
This just posted by USA Today:
More than four in 10 Americans favor making an abortion more difficult to have, up 6 percentage points from 2007, according to a poll released today by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The poll found that 45% of Americans favor making abortion illegal in most or all cases, up 4 percentage points from last year.
The Pew analysis of past polls found that abortion is less of a critical issue for both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans than it was a few years ago; however, the drop-off in concern was more pronounced for liberal Democrats (26 percentage points) than conservative Republicans (9 percentage points).
For instant updates, follow me on Twitter.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Guides
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
38 comments Add your comment
Dr. Aborto
October 1st, 2009
4:31 pm
I have hope that Democrats will eventually abort themselves into extinction.
soulfinger
October 1st, 2009
5:56 pm
Maybe your mom should have aborted you…..
M
October 1st, 2009
6:04 pm
If you want abortion banned, consider the following:
1) How many years would a doctor serve in jail for providing one? The mother?
2) How many police man-hours should be spent on investigating miscarriages?
3) If a clandestine abortion clinic is raided, do people in the waiting room go to jail for attempted murder? Do they go to jail before or after the child they would’ve aborted is born?
Abortion is not a pleasant thing, but it is a necessary thing. The freedom to choose to have one must not be removed.
Plato
October 1st, 2009
6:07 pm
What an ignorant, insensitive thing to type. You are a low-life, soulfinger.
Lou
October 1st, 2009
6:25 pm
I think every one should have a right to do what they want to do if it is their own body.I only answer to god for myself not for everyone else.What is between god and myself is no one buisness. I will answer for what I have done no one else.So why is it your buisness what others want.If you dont like dont do it. that simple
Rosita
October 1st, 2009
7:01 pm
Abortion is necessary? Oh, PUH-leeze! If anything is necessary, how about abstinence?
Mr. Show Buisness
October 1st, 2009
7:02 pm
So Lou, if someone murdered your pregnant wife, should he be charged with one murder or two?
Sally
October 1st, 2009
7:04 pm
Personally, I don’t see abortion going anywhere and I really don’t believe this study at all. As a statistician, I know statistics can be skewed to say whatever you want them to say. Republicans need to make up their mind, either they want the government deciding personal decisions for citizens or they do not. Stop flip flopping.
M
October 1st, 2009
7:11 pm
Abortion IS necessary. If you tell me that my wife has even a 10% chance of dying if she carries a baby to term, the baby is not going to be born. Period. Her life would be infinitely more valuable than the life of a replaceable fetus.
Concerned
October 1st, 2009
7:25 pm
I am against abortion as a form of birth control. If you messed around and got pregnant, tough.
I believe we should let people choose and freedom about their bodies, but who is standing up for the babies rights, who is the mom to say her child’s life is not worthy to be allowed.
I think abortion to protect a mother from a terminal problem during delivery, or in the case of rape is ok. However, for those idiots who screw up, man up, have the baby, and if you aren’t ready, I’m sure there are plenty of people who would love to have your child and give it a good life.
I’m not sure but I think at the first trimester, it has a heartbeat. It is not just some glob inside you, it is a living human and should be treated as such.
Lou
October 1st, 2009
7:26 pm
Again the choice,God and me
Name (required)
October 1st, 2009
8:02 pm
Oh please. Abstinence has to be the DUMBEST idea. If you honestly think it works, you need your head examined. What we need is free condoms available in public places. Sex is going to happen regardless of what these psycho pseudo-religious nutjobs think.
If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one, but it’s damn time they start teaching safe sex in high schools and having a free, no-questions-asked place where condoms are readily available. It’s people who have villified sex and the human body and tried to convince people they should be ashamed of getting it on that leads to unwanted pregnancy. I guarantee you that never in the history of the world has the viewing of a naked human body contributed to illness or death of ANYONE. It really is time to get real about sex…..we are not in the 1800’s anymore.
PappyHappy
October 1st, 2009
8:05 pm
Nancy Pelosi, Barney Franks, John Murtha, Harry Reid, John Conyers, Maxine Waters, ‘Kook’ Grayson, and John Kerry are all living examples of why selective abortion should continue. The problem is, no one can envision a human being getting off of life’s track, and doing so much damage as these leaderless narcissists have demonstrated when they are first born!!
GoGaBulldawgs
October 1st, 2009
8:07 pm
Great! Bring back the coat hangers and back street abortions from before the 70’s. It’s amazing that the subject of abortion is even discussed today.
Lou Too
October 1st, 2009
8:08 pm
Hey Lou — the “choice” or the “baby”? It’s not just you and God….there is another human being involved, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not.
Something interesting (but mostly sad) that rarely is brought up in discussion is the disproportionate number procured abortions by black women. Minority women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States, but they underwent approximately 36% of the abortions. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion. On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.
Skeptic
October 1st, 2009
8:19 pm
Not one margin of error listed in the report at that link. It’s pretty hard to interpret how meaningful 4% and 6% changes in polls are without some idea of the sampling error we might expect. Judging by the quality of dialogue here, that’s probably asking way to much for the conservative nutjobs to ponder…just keep telling the rest of us when life begins since you’ve got it all figured out. Your lawn is alive and god made the grass; time to ban lawnmowers.
Bernie
October 1st, 2009
8:20 pm
Its WRONG!!!! except on health and moral issues
Tom
October 1st, 2009
8:23 pm
GoGaBulldawg — there are nearly 1.5 million abortions in the US every year. How on God’s green earth do you think that it is a subject that shouldn’t be discussed today?
Tom
October 1st, 2009
8:26 pm
Hey Skeptic — a human being > lawn.
Free Thinker
October 1st, 2009
8:46 pm
PappyHappy makes an important point although I doubt he understands the full significance of it.
If abortion becomes illegal, then many fetuses which would have otherwise been aborted will be born and grow into adults. While some of them will no doubt be good citizens who will make positive contributions to our culture, some will not: they will become criminals or will otherwise be burdens to society. The question is what portion will be good and what portion will be bad. Given that a high proportion of abortions currently are given to low income, single mothers (the same population that yields a disproportionate share of our current prison population), the evidence suggests that a higher proportion will be criminals than in the general population. You might want to read “Freakonomics” for a fuller explantion of the relationship between the legalization of abortion and the drop in crime rates 15-20 years later.
Falcons Minority Owner
October 1st, 2009
8:49 pm
Tom, because its pointless to think that this country is prepared to jail 1.5 million women who are making a choice they have thought over and decided to make.
Skeptic
October 1st, 2009
8:50 pm
@Tom, ever consider that things aren’t as black and white as conservative religious zealots would have you believe? How about the woman on the front page of this website right now that didn’t feed her 13 month old kids for weeks when she was strung out on pills? Is she > lawn? How about the 15 year old gangbangers with machine guns that terrorize and kill? > lawn? Of course I’m being facetious, but society as a whole would benefit if the religious extremists (who know absolutely nothing more about what god does or does not think or when life does or does not begin than the rest of us) would get out of the way and let the rest of us (who are pragmatists and aren’t slave to some misguided ideology) find ways to prevent people from having kids they don’t intend to raise.
Billy
October 1st, 2009
9:18 pm
My high school football coach is going to change our school logo to a fetus and we’ll have that on the side of our helmet. Put it this way, it will get the lord on our side for a big game and he just wants to see the heads roll when the Crusaders come to town.
Situational Ethics
October 1st, 2009
9:51 pm
Killing the unborn human is only the bi-product of the “real” problem. Compounding bad decisions as a course of behavioral irresponsibility. Restrain your animal instincts or use a condom! Killing the after effects only serves to lessen you as a human.
Bud
October 1st, 2009
10:11 pm
Ok, so we don’t worry about what God thinks. What about the child? If it is a boy, who has the right to deny him(if it is a boy) throwing his first baseball, picking up his first frog, kissing his first crush, taking a beautiful girl to their prom, watching his bride walk down the aisle to him, holding HIS first child (or second or third), growing old together with his love, holding his first grandchild, sitting on the porch holding hands with his lifelong friend watching the grandchildren play in the yard. Who is to deny them this opportunity? You may say, well their life would not have been like that, but who is to deny them the right to at least have that option. What would you say if someone came to you now and tried to deny YOU those rights, those opportunities? As it is these children, who are no different than any one of us once were, are denied every single opportunity that life offers.
Lawyerdaggett
October 1st, 2009
10:22 pm
I was once a fetus. Weren’t you?
Roger
October 1st, 2009
10:34 pm
Lord Jesus commands the sinners not to abort their children! Only God can choose for us!
Free Thinker
October 1st, 2009
10:37 pm
“Unborn human” is a contradiction in terms.
Having an abortion is not always a bad decision; sometimes it’s the best possible outcome. It “lessens you as a human” only if you believe in a narrow, moralistic definition of what it means to be human. Being human sometimes requires struggling with decisions which pit emotion against reason, and being willing to do what makes sense in spite of strong emotional impulses to do otherwise.
hmmm
October 1st, 2009
10:37 pm
“If it is a boy, who has the right to deny him…taking a beautiful girl to their prom, watching his bride walk down the aisle to him,”
Soooo…what you’re saying is only straight potential humans should be considered? The gay ones deserve to be aborted, right? Because…if God hates gays…and I’m pretty sure given the kind of rhetoric you’re spouting, you fully ascribe to that opinion, THOSE potential humans DESERVE to die, right? Only the boys who are going to take a beautiful girl to the prom deserve to live. And hey, what about the UGLY straight boys who won’t take a beautiful girl, or the un-athletic boys who can’t throw a baseball? Do those not deserve your consideration as well? Or how about the ones that will grow up to rob liquor stores and rape their girlfriends because their parents never wanted them, went to prison, did drugs, abandoned them, abused them, etc?
Wow…the world is a whole lot more complex than your pathetic little Ozzie Loves Harriet plaint would suggest.
Free Thinker
October 1st, 2009
10:50 pm
What about the child? If it is a boy, who has the right to deny him(if it is a boy) smoking his first joint, tormenting his first frog, his first rape, dropping out of school before his first prom, having a series of affairs and never marrying, abusing HIS first child (or second or third), growing old in prison, not knowing or caring whether he has grandchildren, sitting on the porch smoking dope with his current live-in friend. Who is to deny him this opportunity? You may say, well his life would not have been like that, but who is to deny them the right to at least have that option. What would you say if someone came to you now and tried to deny YOU those rights, those opportunities? As it is these children, who are no different than any one of us once were, are denied every single opportunity that life offers.
RGB
October 1st, 2009
11:01 pm
Free Thinker believes he is God. He isn’t.
One day he will find out what HE is all about. Every knee shall bow….
hmmm
October 1st, 2009
11:06 pm
Here’s the problem with the fanatic “pro-life” movement…(I use quote around pro-life because it’s absurd to suggest that those of us who are pro-choice are “pro-death”. I doubt that anything but a fraction of the fringe pro-choice groups are actually in FAVOR of abortions) it refuses to accept social reality. A disproportionate number of abortions are performed on women below the poverty line, in disadvantaged economic classes, and without family or spousal support. The fanatic pro-life fringe pretends that all of these aborted fetuses are going to be born into supportive households, with parents (or a single parent) that loves and wants them, and is capable of support them. This simply isn’t true. What’s worse is that those same people typically oppose any kind of social program that would support those children. In fact, they not only demand that any woman who gets pregnant bear the fetus to term, they simultaneously ATTACK that woman for being socially irresponsible, morally inferior, and generally a drain on society. So, we have self-righteous religious fanatics who are DEMANDING that children be brought into the world, all the while ATTACKING the mothers who have them, and UNDERMINING any social program that might make their lives easier.
Are you people stupid? Oh…yes. You are.
hmmm
October 1st, 2009
11:07 pm
Hey, RGB…I think you mean BEND. Idiot.
Lou
October 2nd, 2009
8:08 am
People are some times so full of crap this has nothing to do with being poor or wealthy, black or white, it has something to do with our own choice.You organized religion fanatics, religion came to this country for the freedom, the same as everyone else came to this country, I am sure when they came over they screamed kill all the indians because we cant control them they are heathens, thats not the worst part put them in organized religion so we can play with them and molest them and beat them, behind closed doors this is what good organized religion does.
Bud
October 2nd, 2009
9:36 am
So hmmm…you seem to have all of the answers. You propose what I TRULY mean as well as what RGB means. RGB does not mean BEND he means BOW! As for me, you have projected your own stereotype onto me. My point was, totally missed by you, that these children have the right to the opportunity of LIFE! Please answer this…at what point does a life become worth fighting for?
Lou
October 2nd, 2009
11:22 am
Only through god and a woman is a child born.Men should not be able to govern a womans body it is her own, our goverment does not have a right to govern my personal body,If it is a moral issue with a church or people that is just their issues not mine make it against the law to the people that go to your churches not to me. It should not even be up for discussion. Maybe we should just start casterating all the males that are born so we dont have to worry about the issue,let just make this a law
Tom
October 2nd, 2009
2:10 pm
Lou — you are a blabbering idiot.
Dr. Aborto
October 2nd, 2009
10:37 pm
Obama’s mother should have had the right to choose. Fo reeeeeeeeelez!!!!!!!!!!!