Gallup Poll shows pro-lifers at 51% for first time [MERGED]

[LoveIsNow]

Heh. I wouldn't be so sure.

Politically you may right, Suiter (a liberal justice) is leaving the Supreme Court and will probably be replaced by a reliable liberal justice, making the chance of Roe v Wade being overturned slim.

But I think this poll is very interesting. 45 years ago Brown v. Board of the education was brought down by the Supreme Court which ended racial segregation in the United States. Every year after that decision that support for segregation continued to drop. By 1970 there was no support for segregation.

Abortion has been a polarizing issue and America has not embraced since the Roe v. Wade ruling in the 70s. In fact this poll shows us America has become MORE Pro Life in the last 10 years.

Woman, as per this particular poll's gender breakdown are more Pro Life than they are Pro Choice.

If your Pro Choice was so right, and Roe v Wade was such a great decision, America would be near unanimous in its support for abortion rights, decades ago, just like what happened with segregation. It hasn't happened.

Its not a Conservative thing either. If I had a dollar for every Liberal/Democratic voter I knew who was Pro Life and against abortion rights....

The issue transcends political and religious lines.

Why then has abortion ceased to be a political issue in places like France and Sweden? It's because of American culture that it's an issue in America.

Support for abortion rights has eroded since the early 1990's, because of the way American politics runs through such issues. Those on the outside fight harder than those on the inside. Abortion was legal and people who didn't support it were losers (see Seinfeld), and the pro-lifers fought hard to change that while the pro-choice movement assumed it had public support. This is a morally ambiguous issue like gun control (the same thing happened to the Assault Weapons Ban) and euthanasia, and none of them will ever have a cut-and-dry answer. The problem with Americans is that we're all (myself included) stubborn, and can't deal with peaceful disagreement, so we want the rest of the country (world, really) to share our values. Even if the trend is currently towards the pro-life side, I think it's reasonably certain it won't always be.

 

[westmanguy]

I'm in Canada...we have unrestricted on-demand until birth abortion access.

We're one of those 'progressive' nations and the polls here have the Pro Life position at 1/3 of the population. Majority is Pro Choice, but another clear majority up here is against late term abortions.

Extreme Pro Choice positions are not accepted by the general population. People don't support 3rd trimester-late term-partial birth abortions for any reason other than the woman's health.

You're right though. We're all stubborn and unwilling to move. That's why I say to a certain point this issue is irreconcilable. There is not a clear common ground.

And the U.S. has religious Puritan roots...which explains why your the sole stand out in the Western World for your high level of religiosity.

That Rick Warren religious debate in the '08 election...dear God, that would never happen in Canada. We could care less if our leaders are Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever.

 

[LoveIsNow]

And the U.S. has religious Puritan roots...which explains why your the sole stand out in the Western World for your high level of religiosity.

That Rick Warren religious debate in the '08 election...dear God, that would never happen in Canada. We could care less if our leaders are Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever.

I'm not even going to let myself get started on that issue. I could rail against American religion for days.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kulin, your notion shows intelligent reason—a quality usually visibly lacking in the pro-life/pro-choice debate. Most of the time, people seem to take one extreme or the other (see JAV's post), without looking at a possible point in between.

I commend you.

Believe it or not, I came to that position thanks to extreme pro-lifers: they were always quoting stacks of Bible verses they claimed told us that life begins at conception, but when I looked at those verses they didn't say that at all. For example:

"You formed my inward parts; you wove me in my mother's womb". -- Psalm 139:13

That doesn't say a thing about when that critter in the womb becomes a person; it only says that God did the work which occurred. The same is true of many Bible verses, so I started looking to see if there were any which gave an indication -- and found only the Septuagint rendering in the Old Testament which states that if a man strikes a woman and it causes a miscarriage, if the fetus is fully formed, then it was murder. That struck me as a legal rule of thumb rather than a declaration of personhood, though.
So I turned to the early church fathers, and guess what? They couldn't agree either, but what intrigued me was a debate over when the soul was imparted to the body -- which sounded an awful lot like "When does the fetus become a person?" One strong position was that it happened at "quickening", so I tried to find something known these days which matched that. Positing that as the moment the soul shows up, I figured that would demonstrate itself as a sort of awakening of the mind, which would be seen by a change in brainwaves.
Somewhere I found an article that said such a change occurs around ten weeks.

Since a number of states and countries define cessation of brainwaves as the moment of death, it seemed reasonable, then, to define the appearance of full human brainwaves as the moment of personhood. A difficulty emerges, however, in that apparently it isn't something easily done. That suggests that a good rule of thumb is needed -- one which is provided by the first trimester rule, though that isn't based on anything scientific as far as I know.

Anyway, it started from the Religious Right, and finding how baseless many of their claims are.

 

[Kulindahr]

Ah -- the pro-life argument. Why am I not surprised that'd be the one you consider "knowledge and logic"?

Discussions of this nature about abortion pretend to be based in reason when in fact they are not.

At which moment are you saying brain waves indicate "there's a person involved"?

Pro-lifers usually say this happens at about six weeks because at that point some electrical activity can be detected.

But from what I've read, there is no absolute "knowledge" or "logic" about that, and many neurologists attribute that electrical activity in the first trimester to random neuron firings as nerves connect -- in other words, tiny spasms as a result of the fetus forming rather than a "person" with brain activity.

So is that when you think "there's a person involved"? If not then, when?

"Pro-life?"

Most every pro-life argument I've heard says conception is the moment -- and they don't look at science or reason in the least.

Where do you find pro-lifers talking about this? I came to it on my own (see my last post above).

The article I remember discussed the appearance of dream patterns in brain waves fully comparable to those of a child, and said this occurred around ten weeks.


As for your "there is no absolute 'knowledge'... about that, I just did a google search and it seems that there is absolute knowledge: electrical activity in neurons appears around six weeks after conception. Pinning the appearance of personhood on that seems more than a little stretching, however; I'd compare it to test runs and connection tests on a computer, before actual software is installed, and the inception of personhood as when the software actually is up and running.

 

[Kulindahr]

However, Obama made some really good points in his Notre Dame commencement speech today that I agree with.

At a certain point, the two sides of this issue are irreconcilable. One side sees it as the protection of human life and the other as the freedom of a woman to make decisions over her own body. Those 2 views have no common ground.

I disagree with Obama, though: there is a meeting point in those two definitions, and it lies in two phrases -- "human life" and "her own body". Before it's a human life, as in a human person, it can be reasonably considered a part of the woman's body; after, it can't. The two sides are based, to that extent, on deliberate self-deception, or deliberate (pretended) ignorance.

That's why what we need as a country is a legal definition of when a human life begins, and it has to be based not on wishful thinking, or misinterpretations of Bible passages, or even Bible passages which set legal rules of thumb for an age without much medical knowledge, but on the science we know.

 

[release2]

I'm not sure that passing through a vagina is what imbues a fetus with human rights.

Therefore, I'm inclined to believe that conception is the moment life begins. Enforcing that view is another matter entirely... it seems like a huge invasion of privacy to try to stop a woman from getting an abortion if she wants it.

 

[Kulindahr]

Erm.. I believe they scientifically deduced that when the fetus has a developed brain and internal organs, and does not necessarily need the mother or her body to help protect it, is when it can be considered a person.

That's not deduction, it's grabbing a criterion out of thin air -- one which is nonsense, at that, once it gets to the "viability" portion.

 

[release2]

The "viability" argument is nonsense.

A baby can't live on its own, even after it has been born. Most children couldn't fend for themselves in the wild without parents, yet we consider them "viable".

 

[Kulindahr]

This is 8 weeks.

That couldn't be distinguished by a normal person from any primate fetus. Looks are a very poor basis for establishing much of anything.

I'm in Canada...we have unrestricted on-demand until birth abortion access.

That's barbaric.

And the U.S. has religious Puritan roots...which explains why your the sole stand out in the Western World for your high level of religiosity.

It's more accurate to say that the U.S. has dissenter roots, which is a set that included Puritans, but had other subsets as well.
And once here, they didn't get along much better with each other than they had with the established church back home.

I'm not sure that passing through a vagina is what imbues a fetus with human rights.

Therefore, I'm inclined to believe that conception is the moment life begins. Enforcing that view is another matter entirely... it seems like a huge invasion of privacy to try to stop a woman from getting an abortion if she wants it.

Rights imply the ability to exercise a choice. A single cell doesn't even have the potential for that -- nor do eight cells, or sixty-four, or four-thousand ninety-six, or even 1,048,576.
Choice requires a brain, so until there's a brain, human rights don't apply -- and even then, it must be a functioning human brain capable of at least responding to its environment.

 

[Kulindahr]

The "viability" argument is nonsense.

A baby can't live on its own, even after it has been born. Most children couldn't fend for themselves in the wild without parents, yet we consider them "viable".

Frak, most adults couldn't fend for themselves in the wild!

 

[release2]

Rights come from the ability to exercise choice?

This is a new definition to me. So until a child can choose between mashed green peas and mashed carrots, they're expendable?

It reminds me of a time someone told me rights come from consciousness. But that would leave out people who are asleep, so it's okay to kill your spouse while he's asleep next to you!

 

[NickCole]

"Pro-life?"

Most every pro-life argument I've heard says conception is the moment -- and they don't look at science or reason in the least.

Where do you find pro-lifers talking about this? I came to it on my own (see my last post above).

Maybe when I've spoken to pro-lifers I inspire a more reasonable response.

Despite their desire to have a total ban on abortion, this brain wave thing is something I've heard several times from pro-lifers because they point to it first occuring at around six weeks, and if making abortion illegal after six weeks were something they could achieve it would potentially disqualify a huge percentage of abortions.

Now, of course there are the radical pro-lifers who refuse to even consider giving an inch, but my point is there are people with a pro-life position who are willing to discuss the possibility of applying reason to the debate. And I suspect the latter are the ones who are increasing in numbers and making the polls show that pro-lifers are now the majority.

The article I remember discussed the appearance of dream patterns in brain waves fully comparable to those of a child, and said this occurred around ten weeks.

I haven't heard that and it sounds too early to be possible. If you post a link to credible support for it, okay, but otherwise what I know to be true combined with my common sense says ten weeks is too early for a fetus to have the dream patterns of a child.

As for your "there is no absolute 'knowledge'... about that, I just did a google search and it seems that there is absolute knowledge: electrical activity in neurons appears around six weeks after conception. Pinning the appearance of personhood on that seems more than a little stretching, however; I'd compare it to test runs and connection tests on a computer, before actual software is installed, and the inception of personhood as when the software actually is up and running.

That's essentially what I posted, and I think it makes sense, but it's not absolute knowledge. It's the conclusion reached by many experts. We don't yet, and maybe we never will, absolutely know what's happening in the mind of a fetus, the moment when the brain wave changes from indicating a spasm to indicating thought and emotion that we associate with "personhood."

Look, most of us believe abortion is an unfortunate, even disgusting, procedure and in a perfect world would never be done. But we don't live in a perfect world and this is one of those issues that's emotional as much as practical. Also it's unique in that the situation being addressed is one that's constantly changing, the fetus growing rapidly and elements changing by the minute, and we don't have "absolute knowledge" about when a collection of cells becomes "a person," all of which makes it difficult to wrap a law around. That's the reason it's my opinion, and the opinion of most pro-choice advocates I've ever heard, that we cannot solve the issue by coming to an agreement about when a fetus becomes a person.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm not a woman.

I figure men should have no say over what a woman decides to do with her body.

But that creature in the womb has DNA that's half from a man -- or it wouldn't be there. So...

genetically, it isn't her body anyway; there's a "guest" involved that is as much the father's as hers.


edit: and since there's a father, she's already allowed a man to have a say in what happens to her body.

 

[Kulindahr]

You can't talk to a pro-lifer that way because to them it's not about the woman. The fetus is considered to have the right to be born.

Not that I'm taking a position on this issue. I'm not.

If it's a human, it does have that right.
The question is whether it's a human, i.e. a person -- and both sides wiggle away from actually confronting that question, one by pretending they already know, the other by pretending it isn't an issue.

 

[Kulindahr]

^
Rights exist; they can't be given. The question is what legal powers are granted -- or what rights exist which pertain.

 

[Kulindahr]

Correct. It seems to be the perfect catch-22 and there is no middle ground. The fetus either is or isn't a human being that deserves to be born. I think it is but at the same time I'm wary of ruling a womans body. Right to your own body is an inalieble freedom. The fetus is part of her body. The fact that it has separate genes also throws me. Though it may be incorporated into her body it is in fact an individual by many standards.

I hate this debate I can't make up my mind.

I can't make up my mind in an absolute sense, but I have in a practical sense: when an adult dies, brainwaves cease, so it stands to reason that on the other end, once you have actual brainwaves -- not randomly firing neurons, but actual evidence of a working mind -- then human life has begun.

The absolutists on the pro-life end will cry that it's human because it has human DNA, but that's a cheap avoidance maneuver; there's a difference between being "human" and being "a human". If it's merely human, i.e. a blob of tissue which happens to have human DNA, then being rid of it is not murder; but if it's a human, then although it may be an unwanted guest, it's still a guest, and the woman has an obligation to be hospitable until the guest is ready to leave.

Yes, that imposes a burden on the woman that isn't imposed on the man, which is why a woman ought to take the responsibility of knowing who the father is, so the rest of us can tell him to shoulder his share of the burden for the new life with his DNA.

 

[Kulindahr]

^ It's interesting to note that large numbers of zygotes are regularly disposed of at fertility clinics—but you never hear the pro-lifers rant against THAT.

Oh, some do. I recall a document that came out of the Catholic Bishops Conference that got passed around that right-wing R.C. mailing list I get stuff from on occasion. They want every zygote saved.....

 

[Edward Twinkletoes]

some women are whores... if you keep getting abortions... that's wrong. I think legally a woman should be entitled to ONE abortion.. because we ALL make mistakes. Things happen. But you shouldn't need another abortion. Use protection and birth control. You are bring a HUMAN CHILD into this world!

I think pro lifers should either adopt at least one kid or STFU.

 

[Kulindahr]

I think pro lifers should either adopt at least one kid or STFU.

Have you looked at what it costs to adopt, lately?

I know a pro-life family who have adopted two now. The average for each was over $20,000.