This was getting a lot of attention yesterday:
“Pro-Choice” Americans at Record-Low 41%
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.
Why is this happening? Well, I’ve written about this several times at my blog, most recently a year ago. For me it always comes back to the theory articulated in this L.A. Times article from 2000:
Typically when abortion rights are threatened, support for legal abortion rises, according to polling experts.
In the last decade, for example, previous polls show support for Roe peaking at 56% around 1991, when the decision was under attack across the country….
In 1992, the Supreme Court issued a decision upholding Roe, with some modifications. The same year, Clinton, an abortion rights supporter, was elected president. Both events appeared to reassure people there would be no dramatic changes in abortion policy. Subsequently, support for Roe began to decline.
In a 1996 poll, 46% of respondents endorsed Roe vs. Wade. By 1999, support had slipped slightly to 43%….
Look at the graph. Notice when the numbers were almost as much in the “pro-life” direction as they are now: 2009, just after the pro-choice Barack Obama took office. Abortion rights seemed safe, so people drifted away from the “pro-choice” self-identification.
Now look at the last time “pro-choice” beat “pro-life”: 2011, a few months after the overwhelmingly anti-abortion GOP class of 2010 took their oaths of office in Congress, state houses, and state legislatures. Abortion right seemed under threat, so more people decided they were pro-choice.
What’s going on now? Well, President Obama has recently gone out of his way to make sure you know he’s a champion of reproductive rights. And another Gallup poll taken this month says that Americans believe Obama will win reelection, by a landslide 56%-36% margin.
So Americans think Obama will be president for four more years, therefore abortions right aren’t threatened. And again they’re drifting out of the “pro-choice” camp.
But just you wait: If Mitt Romney wins, “pro-choice” will be beating “pro-life” again.
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
I hate the way it is stated as if you must be one or the other. It is possible to be both. And I think that those who would normally view themselves as both, follow your dictum.
On the other hand, and this is telling, is that well over 70% still favor abortion rights in all or some circumstances.
The other problem here is that people identify being pro-choice as being for abortions. A person can view abortions negatively for themselves but still believe in the woman’s right to choose. Bit they don’t necessarily want to identify themselves as pro-abortion, which is what pro-choice has come to mean.
Exactly. I bet only a minority would call themselves “feminists” in a poll, but a huge majority would support equal pay and equal rights between genders.
Polls like this, that ask people to put stupid labels on themselves, should be universally ignored. I am strongly for abortion rights but would hesitate a little at calling myself pro-choice, given all its connotations. And who would not flinch a little at essentially labeling themselves as “anti-choice”? Wording like this sets up a whole ecology of emotions and image issues that have no place in a poll.
Last I saw a healthy majority still backs abortion rights. That’s the question that counts. This poll is garbage.
I like your theory but it’s kind of bad news for our side. Roe is actually up for a vote in this election. We lose, and it will be overturned.
Actually, I’d say that if the race stays tight and voters realize that Romney threatens Roe, the numbers will change. That will happen even before the election.
I hope so. It’s up to people on the left to make sure people know whats at stake.
Good theory. Very plausible.
Let’s also keep in mind that this is a poll about labels, not policy.
I’ll bet there are a lot more people out there who call themselves “pro-life” because they have moral objections to abortion, but who don’t support banning it, than the opposite (people who call themselves “pro-choice,” but who support restrictions on reproductive freedom).
Are these marginal pro-choicers the same idiots who don’t bother to vote in off-year elections?
The theory espoused in the LA Times seems plausible, yet since Roe vs Wade I don’t think abortion rights have come under more relentless and successful attack than they are today. It’s just that it’s playing out primarily on the state level.
Also, nevermind the GOP’s theocratic fervor against abortion and abortion rights; there’s little if anything coming out of the Democratic leadership or the White House to suggest that the Dems will not cede federal authority to the individual states vis a vis abortion rights policy in those states.
This is serious regression! And with discussion around all the various assaults on women’s health and contraception and abortion rights playing out in the political discourse these days, if abortion rights are important at all to someone they’d have to be asleep not to recognize the urgency and sheer scale of the threat.