Oh, would that all pollsters were transparent in their methodologies!  Strangely, I read this as women, completely glossing over the article’s use of “young Americans”...no gender specified.  In other words, it worked on me to get me wondering why such an intense gap in women’s opinions….le sigh.  Thanks for pointing that out…I wonder if NARAL or Newsweek will fill us in?...the world waits, with bated breath

It’s no small thing.  All but a few of the most sympathetic pro-feminist men I know think of abortion as a woman’s issue, and not their business.  I think some of them translate their general regard for women’s primacy on this in a personal realm to the political realm, and some of them just have no idea how serious the threat of unintended pregnancy is.  But by and large, pro-choice men care a lot less than pro-choice women.  It’s a joke at every org I’ve ever encountered, how rare the male presence is in their ranks.

The way male liberals “butt-out,” I find a lot of that with the women I talk to, too. I can’t calculate the number of young women who have told me, “I would NEVER, personally, but I should be able to.” There’s a naiveté there, like how even anti-choicers find themselves in one of those “my situation is different” situations, but I read it as a lot these women simply don’t feel like choice is an issue they have a stake in.  They’ve made theirs already.

But that’s anecdotal. And this research is really sloppy and irresponsible.

This is a really good post, Amanda.  I am a male, and passively pro-choice.  Who am I to tell you or any woman what she can do with her body?  I guess liberal men like me need to butt back in.  I wonder if the same is true for gay marriage.  As a liberal, of course I support anyone’s right to marry whomever makes them happy, but as a straight man it doesn’t really effect my life.  It is frightening to think that half the population could lose the right to their bodies because people like me were too passive in our defense of the rights of others.  You’ve given me something to think about.

I don’t think there’s a bait and switch, because there’s no set up where the article focuses only on women.  It talks about “the next generation” being passive, and Democrats not being sufficiently supportive, and a lack of passion in the “post-Roe generation”.  But it’s not ever gender-specific about where the lack of support is, such that you’d say there was a switch when they presented the results of their poll.  And that continues through the whole article.  They never seem to suggest the burden is specifically female.

Except that’s exactly how every single person I’ve spoken to reacts.  The assumption that the pro-choice activist side is dominantly female and the anti-choice side is mixed is so ingrained we never stop to think about what that’s going to mean for us just in terms of numbers.  Is there a shred of evidence that men have ever been as adamantly pro-choice as women?  I’ve never seen it.  They are passively as pro-choice, but when you’re talking about people who take it very seriously, the gender ratios dramatically change.

I think the difference between “butting-out” and voting with our pro-choice views are different.  When something is legal and largely available the enthusiasm for it is bound to be low.  Almost two whole generations have grown up with Roe V. Wade now and it’s part of fabric as people in most major zones and something that while distasteful on an emotional level is a right of a women to do.  So when you ask that question of “is abortion a major issue” it really can’t be for pro-choice people on a technical level because while conservatives seriously want to make it a criminal act they have gained little traction in most elections.

Though I am a serious advocate for pro-choice and frankly find it disturbing somebody else would tell a woman to have a baby she didn’t want and can’t handle.  If it comes up in conversations I make sure to point it out and puncture any crazy baby-lust bubbles that conservatives like to blow.

Is it possible, especially for such a small sample of young people, that the pro-choice side (especially younger guys) simply doesn’t consider abortion rights threatened in the same way that anti-choicers know that their ability to compel labor and birth is threatened? Intensity is something that’s notoriously hard to measure when someone doesn’t have a good idea how probable a threat is.

I think that’s a major part of it.  You can’t equate defending the status quo with attacking in in terms of passion.  By that measure, if I’m right and there’s a gender gap on the enthusiasm on the pro-choice side, that would mean young women are MORE enthusiastic than you’d probably predict.

I think you’re totally right on this Amanda, most of the pro-choice men I know so totally feel that it’s the woman’s decision and they wouldn’t presume to try to decide for her, that they get to the point where they just don’t really feel like it’s an issue for them.  My husband has asked why I feel so strongly about this issue on a personal level, especially since we’re at a place that we probably would end up just running with it if we had an accident, but when I explained how horrifying it feels to try to have someone *legislate* my *personal medical decisions* he realized just how personal it really feels to the adamantly pro-choice women.  I get so pissed off when (as came up on a thread the other day on Pharyngula) you see young women completely blind to the fact that other people may not have the same privilege that they do, but I knew those young women!  I grew up with them!  They had supportive parents and would never personally have an abortion and so….it should be outlawed for everyone?  I’ve never quite gotten that jump in logic.

Isn’t an intensity gap also one of the casualties in the Culture War ground we’ve lost over the last twenty years? You also hear, “I am a feminist, but not one of those man-haters,” an awful lot. There’s a lot of pressure not to identify with mythical bra-burners, and a hesitation to get too worked up over choice seems very in-line with that.

Keep in mind Lord Saletan speaks for more than himself with him being “pro-choice” but willing to give up abortion rights on any given occasion.

I guess the flip side of this for me is male circumcision. I’ve heard both sides of the argument and I think I fall more on the “it’s mutilation” side of the fence, but since I don’t have the man bits in question AND I’m never going to have a boy child, I don’t feel that there’s this urgency for me to get active in the issue. In the unlikely event that it became a political wedge issue, I doubt I would trust either side.

“When something is legal and largely available the enthusiasm for it is bound to be low. “

This is something I was thinking about. Many people don’t think of it as a major issue because the attempts to nibble away and reduce availability isn’t something that gets a lot of attention.  As long as people believe it will be their for *them* when they need it—and most of them don’t know about septic dead fetus extraction being abortion; they are already past parental notification law age; the politically active ones already know their options, etc.
Hell, Anti-choicers are stupid about the importance of the current legality. I have one friend who goes with the dumb-ass “What if mom had aborted ME?!” thing because her mother was only a young teen when she was born, but I feel like yelling at her that Roe V Wade was ALREADY law then, so obviously her mother CHOSE her, so she should be glad she was loved, not forced on her mother.

But what about young people and OTHER issues? It is generally considered that the young adult demographic has the lowest voter turnout. In every generation. Did the older activists not decry the apathy of their peers when they were trying to get people involved as young volunteers? Were they even volunteers and activists when they were young?

My thoughts are that it is important to raise the visibility of abortion—how many women do need them, the diversity of reason, the hurdles they must jump, etc— but that decrying the lack of involvement of a rarely-active demographic group is futile and repeats the “O tempora! O mores!” (have I got my Latin right?) mutterings that go back to when Ogg thought the young Cro-Magnon just didn’t understand the importance of cave-paintings, not like they did in HIS day.

Ponygirl, it’s not just a question of urgency, it’s also at least a little bit a question of Tootsie syndrome (OK, I’m dating myself there bigtime). For men to perform feminism more intensely than women has all kinds of potentially creepy vibes attached to it.

On the flip side, male <strike>anti-choicers</strike> prolifers are super-enthusiastic.  They see abortion rights as a direct assault on their manhood, and they’re going to defend themselves.

Actually, we tend to see it as a direct assault on the fetus…

I think, from a statistical analysis standpoint, you also need to take into account that there are many more pro-choice voters than anti-choice voters. The percentage of the population that is broadly pro-choice is quoted as 75-85% (and that’s not specific to young voters, but lets pretend it’s representative), so on average for every 100 voters there are 20 anti-choice and 80 pro-choice voters. If 50% of the anti-choice voters consider abortion very important, that’s 10 people. If 25% of pro-choice voters think abortion is very important that’s 20 people. So even with the lower “intensity” among pro-choicers there are still more intense pro-choicers than anti-choicers as a matter of absolute numbers.

Yes, which is so obviously a symbol of male dominance over women to you that you’re basically reaffirming what I’ve said.  I have YET to meet an anti-choicer—-especially a male one—-that wasn’t awash in hang-ups about sex and female sexuality in particular.  For instance, your obsession with me is beyond creepy.

I think there are a lot of reasons that pro-choice men are often apathetic about it.  I think that some of them don’t necessarily see it as a “women’s issue”, but think that it’s really just none of their business, the same way that individual abortions are none of their business.  I don’t think it’s a legitimate excuse, but at least these ones have good intention.  I wonder if we had a special thing where only women could vote on it, and the majority voted to ban abortion, if these particular guys would just accept it as being the choice of all women (rather than the choice of individual women).  My guess is that they just never think it through that far.

Then there are plenty of guys who simply don’t realize how serious this is.  There’s this idealized, glowing view of pregnancy in our society and it’s not just limited to conservatives.  For men, especially young ones who aren’t fathers, they often never encounter the downsides of pregnancy besides the mood swings and food cravings that are glamorized in comedies.  Pregnancy talk is still somewhat taboo and it doesn’t come up often in “mixed company”, so many men don’t realize just how dangerous pregnancy can be.  And since they’ll never be pregnant, they have no motivation to find out for themselves.  Education and breaking taboos can really help a lot with this issue.

Then there are probably also some men are afraid that if they support abortion rights too much, it will look as though they want to force women to have abortions against their will, or that others will assume selfish reasons from him.  Maybe some of them also don’t feel welcome to join in unless “invited” by a specific feminist friend.  I would personally love to see men involved with abortion rights, but are there feminists who wouldn’t like that?

None of these are excuses or legitimate reasons for progressive men’s apathy.  But understanding the problem can help us to fix it.

Progressive Prince,
How do you feel about the assault on a 10 year-old child in this case:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/04/mexican-authorities-blocks-abortion-for.html?dsq=45706354#comment-45706354

Oh that’s right, you care about fetal life so much that you care nothing for the life of a 10 year-old child.  Way to prioritize, genius!  Better for a 10 year-old to risk her life and take the fetus with her than for her to have an abortion, amirite?

Also, how often do you donate blood?  If you care about life so much, then why aren’t you giving your own body to save it, the way you want to force other people to do?

Well, this is certainly a <a >timely example</a> of how this abortion stuff really comes down to peepee-dicky.

Oklahoma wants to require a vaginal ultrasound in all abortions—no rape/incest exceptions. I can’t think of anything more creepy. Fucking weirdos.

(And that, kids, is why you hit preview before blaspheming. Sorry for polluting the thread!)

Well, this is certainly a timely example of how this abortion stuff really comes down to peepee-dicky.

Oklahoma wants to require a vaginal ultrasound in all abortions—no rape/incest exceptions. I can’t think of anything more creepy. Fucking weirdos.

Oklahoma wants to require a vaginal ultrasound in all abortions—no rape/incest exceptions.

What kind of jerky asshole douchebag would want to put a rape victim in a potentially triggering situation like that?  Oh right, people who care so much about life that they don’t care about people at all.  What the hell is wrong with these people?

I think that it’s really difficult to sell access as an important issue on the whole. Most people, be them progressive or conservative, do show strains of the whole “let them eat cake” type attitude. If poor women don’t have the resources to have an abortion then they should “work harder” or “get education” or whatever to get the resources so it’s no longer a problem.

I think one important factor in the intensity gap is the intellectual background of people on either side of the issue.  The anti-choice movement is of course highly religious and more specifically selects for the inability to understand nuance or to empathize with people who don’t follow their norms.  The pro-choice movement meanwhile is entirely predicated on nuance and empathy.  A pro-choice person considers things like the health of the pregnant woman, whether the fetus is viable, whether it has defects that will lead to its death shortly after birth, whether the pregnancy is the product of rape or incest, etc.  The typical anti-choice person just says that it’s a living baby person from the moment of conception so abortion is always wrong.  Being the more nuanced position doesn’t help with intensity, though I think it does attract a larger number of supporters (viz. #17).

As for the gender gap, as a man with very progressive opinions I have to say that I often feel like an ally to movements like feminism, LGBTQ rights, and abortion/contraception rights, rather than a participant.

“Progressive_Prince” makes as much sense as “Atheist Roman Catholic”.

If you’re so pro-life, Prince, then perhaps you’d be Progressive enough to be in favor of state-supported medical services and post-partum support for any woman who does want to carry her pregnancy to term, etc?

Abortions went up during the last Administration headed by a “Pro-life” President, funny how that happens when you don’t have birth control and sex education priorities like they do in sinful Europe.

Also, it would be ‘pro-life’ of you to be in favor of people having to donate organs if someone else needed a kidney or bone marrow, why should women be limited to the joys of limited bodily autonomy?

Whilst a difference in gender might be the answer, I’d be reticent to blame it until I saw the breakdown. I’m reminded of a study they did here (UK) on rape apologist positions. The questions were along the lines of “If a woman shares a bed with a man is she to some extent culpable if she’s raped”. Well when the gender was broken down, women were across all the positions 10% plus more likely to claim the woman shared some blame then the men. Internalization up ins.

In a thirty year clergy career, I have been on Planned Parenthood boards, women’s health clinic boards, and gone to speak at the county legislature in favor of Planned Parenthood funding when the anti-choicers were showing up to scream and yell.  All pro choice women treated me with complete professionalism, and I never acted like I deserved a cookie.  There is usually just too much to do to get into those dynamics.  That being said, there were never more than a handful of men involved on our side.

A pro-choice person considers things like the health of the pregnant woman, whether the fetus is viable, whether it has defects that will lead to its death shortly after birth, whether the pregnancy is the product of rape or incest, etc. 
Comment #25: EvanSchenck on 04/20 at 03:36 PM

A pro-choice person doesn’t have to consider any of that.  Talking about the reasons a woman might want an abortion sometimes leads to deciding some of them are good and some of them are bad, that “abortion on demand” leads to women having abortions for frivolous reasons.

It also leads to deciding that some women shouldn’t have babies because they are too poor, too brown, too liberal, too Muslim, not able enough, and so on.

Understanding nuance doesn’t mean you don’t want to control other people’s bodies.  People who draw the line at a particular week, or “when the baby can feel pain,” show just as much interest in getting in someone else’s business as those who want to ban all abortion always.

No, pro-choice just means you have the sense to get the fuck out of the way when someone else wants to make a decision about her own body. 

Pro. Choice.  Get it?

I think there are a lot of reasons that pro-choice men are often apathetic about it.  I think that some of them don’t necessarily see it as a “women’s issue”, but think that it’s really just none of their business, the same way that individual abortions are none of their business.
Comment 19—catgirl

I notice (or assume) there’s not just a gender gap but an age gap. A man in his early to mid 20s likely hasn’t been through a pregnancy scareor otherwise had to actually think about the issue on a personal level, but I suspect thats less true for older men (though still not as true as for women of any age).

as a man with very progressive opinions I have to say that I often feel like an ally to movements like feminism, LGBTQ rights, and abortion/contraception rights, rather than a participant.
Comment 25—EvanSchenck

I’ve recently gone form considering myself “a feminist” to calling myself “sympathetic to feminism.” It’s not a gender thing; it’s that the extent of my contribution to the goals of the movement is reading and commenting on feminist blogs.
* * *
Why is it that so many trolls have handles asserting that they’re on the left? Not just concern trolls in particular, but all types. Are they pretend Yoostabees? Even-the-liberals? Fucking with us? Handles are below comments on Pandagon, so they can’t be trying to fool anybody.

YES—what oldfeminist said at #29.

I get really impatient with “can we all just agree that it is abhorrent?” arguments. No, we can’t. You can’t negotiate away a portion of a woman’s personhood without create a second-class citizen. Choice is morally black and white—it is her fucking body, her fucking fingernails, and her fucking contents of her fucking uterus.

humanadverb @31: I get really impatient with “can we all just agree that it is abhorrent?” arguments. No, we can’t.

Second this. This idea is probably a big part of the enthusiasm gap: the Right’s been incredibly successful in making any dialogue about abortion ever more mealy-mouthed. No one’s immune to it, even the left, even the far left, even the progressively far-leftiest lefty of the left. “Abortion is a shitty choice but I’m okay with women making it” is a bullshit nod to the bullshit Right’s bullshit meme.

I think, from a statistical analysis standpoint, you also need to take into account that there are many more pro-choice voters than anti-choice voters. The percentage of the population that is broadly pro-choice is quoted as 75-85% (and that’s not specific to young voters, but lets pretend it’s representative), so on average for every 100 voters there are 20 anti-choice and 80 pro-choice voters.

No. Not even close. Actually, most Americans are prolife:

In a poll released Friday by Zogby International, a respected polling firm, a total of 56 percent agreed with one of the following pro-life views: abortion should never be legal (18 percent), legal only when the life of the mother is in danger (15 percent) or legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest (23 percent).

Only a pro-abortion wingnut would be disconnected enough to think 85% of America is prochoice.

Abortions went up during the last Administration headed by a “Pro-life” President, funny how that happens when you don’t have birth control and sex education priorities like they do in sinful Europe.

No, abortions did not go up under Bush.

What is it with you pro-abortion types not getting basic facts right?

Oh that’s right, you care about fetal life so much that you care nothing for the life of a 10 year-old child.  Way to prioritize, genius!  Better for a 10 year-old to risk her life and take the fetus with her than for her to have an abortion, amirite?

Like most Americans who are prolife (see above) I think abortion should be allowed to save the life of the mother.

Like most Americans who are prolife (see above) I think abortion should be allowed to save the life of the mother.

So what you’re saying there is that the life-threatened mother should have the oh let’s call it ‘choice’, to abort? It’s either BABY-KILLIN!11!! or it’s not. Fuck.

Oklahoma wants to require a vaginal ultrasound in all abortions—no rape/incest exceptions.

Well, if you’re going to make sexual assault with an intstrument (which as a wholly unnecessary medical procedure is what it is in this case) a condition of terminating a pregnany, why would you be sympathetic to people who have experience of sexual assault? They probably argue that it is fairer to women who have been raped, because it requires all women to be raped before they can have an abortion.

So what you’re saying there is that the life-threatened mother should have the oh let’s call it ‘choice’, to abort? It’s either BABY-KILLIN!11!! or it’s not. Fuck.

Whilst his position isn’t philosophically defensible (unless he supports people being forced to donate non-essenial organs etc - piano player argument). But that isn’t a sound critique. It’s akin to saying ‘what if someone is trying to kill you you can kill them, it’s murder or it’s not!’

>a respected polling firm, a total of 56 percent agreed with one of the following pro-life views: abortion should never be legal (18 percent), legal only when the life of the mother is in danger (15 percent) or legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest (23 percent).

One time I met a guy and I asked him his opinion on abortion. He said “Abortion should never be legal, but it should be legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest.” He was 5% of the population. This is a true story and I am glad to see your statistics objectively prove it by the standards you have set out.

Amanda wrote:

“It’s no small thing.  All but a few of the most sympathetic pro-feminist men I know think of abortion as a woman’s issue, and not their business.  I think some of them translate their general regard for women’s primacy on this in a personal realm to the political realm, and some of them just have no idea how serious the threat of unintended pregnancy is.  But by and large, pro-choice men care a lot less than pro-choice women.  It’s a joke at every org I’ve ever encountered, how rare the male presence is in their ranks.”
As a pro-choice guy, I would say that it boils down to two things:

Some guys genuinely believe that this is an issue that women should have the final say on (since it’s ultimately their bodies, a view which I strongly subscribe to) or, the more sinister (and maybe more true, though that is certainly not better thing) is that most guys (pro-choice or otherwise) are at least subconsciously aware that pregnancy is never going to be an issue for them and that they always have the option of bolting when it’s all said and done (just to be clear, I do NOT condone this attitude, and in fact I strongly discourage it).

That’s just my two cents on the matter

This is my favorite part of “Progressive Prince’s stuff:

“Only a pro-abortion wingnut would be disconnected enough to think 85% of America is prochoice.”

Why is that? People are notorious for saying they are against something until it affects them. Then they are damn straight in favor of it, 100%.

So what you’re saying there is that the life-threatened mother should have the oh let’s call it ‘choice’, to abort? It’s either BABY-KILLIN!11!! or it’s not. Fuck.

Whilst his position isn’t philosophically defensible (unless he supports people being forced to donate non-essenial organs etc - piano player argument). But that isn’t a sound critique. It’s akin to saying ‘what if someone is trying to kill you you can kill them, it’s murder or it’s not!’

Comment #36: Alex051 on 04/20 at 04:42 PM
—————-

Meh, if a woman chooses to abort a pregnancy to save her own life then it is a choice. Sure a choice most everyone would make but still a choice. If you call yourself pro-life, high-minded exceptions are crap- either abortion is murder or it’s not. Either you’re murdering that precious wee angel bebe in there or you’re not.

I get really impatient with “can we all just agree that it is abhorrent?” arguments.

Me too—I’ll agree that it’s abhorrent when we agree that heart surgery, appendectomy, chemotherapy and knee replacements are “abhorrent”. Medical treatment isn’t abhorrent, it’s necessary.

As oldfeminist and mir point out the whole debate seems to be on the terms of the right.  That’s why when I’m arguing with an anti-choicer I say that I think anyone who doesn’t want a baby should get an abortion, no apologies needed.  It’s the moral choice.

Alex @27: Yes, but that speaks to my point.  On the misogynist side of the fence, men and women tend to show equal-ish enthusiasm for hating women.  On the feminist side of the fence, I think you see a lot more women who feel that their rights are under siege than men do. 

This is regarding the feminist side of the fence.  If you asked a question about how much rape seems like a pressing social issue and only asked it of people who accepted the premise that rape is always wrong—-a sadly small portion of people—-would you find that women were more concerned about rape than men?  Maybe.  The issues don’t align exactly.

Progressive Idiot, try something more recent than 2005:

The teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. is rising, according to a recent study from the Guttmacher Institute.

Teen pregnancy rose 3 percent in 2006, the most recent year in the Guttmacher study, reflecting increases in teen births and abortions of 4 percent and 1 percent.

That’s 1% higher than 2005, obviously a sign of the decline in abortions among teen women, which won’t have an effect on the overall abortion rate, of course.

Link

Also, when did we determine the right to bodily autonomy based on public opinion?  If the citizens of your state, Progressive Varlet, pass a law deeming all spare organs and body parts of those under 40 years of age and in good health should be available to ‘save lives’ of sick residents needing parts and transplants, would you think that the law was ‘pro-life’?

BTW, how the poll questions are configured makes a difference as well:

“More than 35 years ago, the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe versus Wade established a constitutional right for women to obtain legal abortions in this country. In general, do you think the Court’s decision was a good thing or a bad thing?”
                 
 
Good thing     Bad thing     Both (vol.)      Unsure
 
        %              %              %            % %
 

   

4/5-12/10  
     

        58             34               3               5
   

  6/12-16/09  

        62             32               3           3

http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm

I get really impatient with “can we all just agree that it is abhorrent?” arguments. No, we can’t.

Seriously.

There was a recent poll from either Gallup or Pew that showed for the younger generation, there was a gender gap for the first time on abortion. Young women were heavily pro-choice, and men were basically split in half.

There was another poll that tracked intensities among Democrats, and men were less likely to see it as a deal breaking issue, or as a top priority.

I will try to find some polling data.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1212/abortion-gun-control-opinion-gender-gap

http://people-press.org/report/283/pragmatic-americans-liberal-and-conservative-on-social-issues

These aren’t the ones I was talking about, but they have some interesting analysis.

Progressive Idiot, try something more recent than 2005:

Ok, first of all, you might have linked to an article written in 2010 but the study it cited was done in 2006. A whole whopping year after my source. Impressive.

That’s 1% higher than 2005, obviously a sign of the decline in abortions among teen women, which won’t have an effect on the overall abortion rate, of course.

Fine. According to the Guttmacher study you linked to - teenage abortion went up a minuscule .2 from a rate of 19.1 in 2005 to 19.3 in 2006.

Your point?

Keep in mind your original claim was:

Abortions went up during the last Administration headed by a “Pro-life” President

Now you are aware that President Bush served as President from 2000-2008, right? It wasn’t from 2005-2006.

Keeping that in mind, did you notice that the teenage abortion rate was 24/per 1k in 2000, according to your same study, and that it continuously decreased for the first 5 years of his presidency?

Thus, 24-19.1 = decrease of 4.9 from 2000-2005 + .2 = net decrease in teenage abortions of 4.7 = I win = you loose = deal with it.

Also, when did we determine the right to bodily autonomy based on public opinion?

We didn’t.

I simply pointed out thinking that 85% of the American population is pro-choice, when no survey even close to makes that claim, indicates a profound discontent from reality.

There is a sizable gender gap in abortion attitudes among the youngest generation of Americans. Women age 18-24 oppose further limits on abortion access by a wide margin (63%-34%). But young men are divided over the issue: 50% oppose more abortion restrictions, while 45% are in favor. In this regard, this youngest group of men stand apart not only from women within their cohort, but also from men age 25 and older. Aside from this gap between men and women under age 25, there are virtually no gender gaps in overall abortion attitudes among older cohorts.

Abortion a More Powerful Issue for Women. The poll is from 2004.

That Newsweek poll is referenced but they have never released the actual numbers, and NARAL, who paid for the poll, hasnt either.

One time I met a guy and I asked him his opinion on abortion. He said “Abortion should never be legal, but it should be legal only when the life of the mother is in danger or in cases of rape or incest.” He was 5% of the population. This is a true story and I am glad to see your statistics objectively prove it by the standards you have set out.

Let me get this straight - your argument is that because you met some random idiot guy once my Zogby poll is inaccurate?

Actually, we tend to see it as a direct assault on the fetus…

Yes, and the woman is completely invisible and irrelevent.  The fetus is all-important, because it is a unique human life.  The unique human life of the woman?  Completely worthless, except as a vehicle to protect and foster the fetus.

Abortion is a direct assault on a fetus.  It has nothing at all to do with the woman who has chosen it.

Meh, if a woman chooses to abort a pregnancy to save her own life then it is a choice. Sure a choice most everyone would make but still a choice. If you call yourself pro-life, high-minded exceptions are crap- either abortion is murder or it’s not. Either you’re murdering that precious wee angel bebe in there or you’re not.

I think what Alex051 was saying (and what I am saying in any case) was that when a prolifer believes an abortion is justified to save the life of the mother he/she is not arguing the fetus is not human in those situations, rather that the circumstances surrounding the abortion justify it.

So like with the self-defense example above - if you think killing another human being in self defense is justified - that doesn’t mean you think attackers are somehow not human - it just means you think you have a right to defend yourself.

Thus, there is nothing logically inconsistent with believing that all fetuses are human and being in support a life-in-danger exception for the mother.

A whole whopping year after my source. Impressive.

My second link was more up to date, why didn’t you see fit to mention that fact?

Thus, 24-19.1 = decrease of 4.9 from 2000-2005 + .2 = net decrease in teenage abortions of 4.7 = I win = you loose = deal with it.

Except that losers don’t know how to spell the word lose that = deal with it.

I simply pointed out thinking that 85% of the American population is pro-choice, when no survey even close to makes that claim, indicates a profound discontent from reality.

58% think that Roe V Wade was a good decision, that’s far from the Zogby poll statistics you were quoting a while back, but don’t let the facts get in the way of your ideology, nor shall your inability to say what kind of pro-life policy you would like to see in place postpartum for the mother and child be held against you,  it wouldn’t be fair.

I’m a liberal guy that thinks reproductive rights are one of the most pressing issues in existence in America, but I also know for certain that, at least in the circles I run in, I’m in the stark minority.

My evidence is as anecdotal as Amanda’s, but as a guy talking to other liberal guys, abortion (and contraception) are regularly swept aside as unimportant issues.  I think it’s one part not seeing the urgency, and one part not seeing the threat.  Most guys don’t have to contemplate, on a personal level, the potentially devastating effect of an unintended pregnancy, forced to be carried to term.  And without that urgency driving a need for information, most liberal guys (again, that I know and talk to) aren’t aware of just how fucking intensely the right wing is trying to outlaw abortion and contraception.

There’s this idea that liberal women are unduly concerned with abortion, when it’s not even under any serious threat, and their energies would be much better focused on “mainstream” liberal causes.  And I don’t think it’s malicious, but it’s definitely harmful given how literally religiously anti-choicers pursue their agenda.

To add to the argument with the troll, briefly: the questions get asked in so many different ways that polls aren’t very useful for gauging actual public sentiment regarding abortion.  It’s easy to phrase the question so the respondent is basically free to judge bad sluts who want bad slutty abortions.

My second link was more up to date, why didn’t you see fit to mention that fact?

Once again, you seem to think that just because an article or report was published on a date the info the report was based on was from that date. Newsflash - it isn’t. Case in point- the Guttmacher Report clearly says the data it is based on is up to 2006.

Except that losers don’t know how to spell the word lose that = deal with it.

Wow - pointing out a typo = epic fail.

Check this logic bomb out: Jst bEcase i mdae a fwe typoss doesn’t mak yOu any leess dumb.

P_P, since that seems more appropriate to call you that, you do notice that the Guttmacher document is copyright 01/2010?

You apparently didn’t read the first line:

This report contains the most current teenage pregnancy, birth and abortion statistics available,

Which is that for 2006, 2000-2006 is a better time frame than a report written in 2005 which covered which years again?

Wow - pointing out a typo = epic fail.

It’s known as glass houses and stones, looser, aside from using language that demonstrates you have all the emotional stability of a 10 year old…............

Check this logic bomb out: Jst bEcase i mdae a fwe typoss doesn’t mak yOu any leess dumb.

Thanks for demonstrating my point, and still evading how pro-life you would be after the baby has left the <strike>sluts’</strike> mothers’ womb.

Amanda, you don’t need this cretin using your bandwidth, so please ban him for violating the stick rule.

What’s the stick rule?

Anyone dumber than a stick is eligible to be banned from here.

Speaking personally, as far as I know my male friends and I have different opinions when it comes to abortion but they’re all somewhere in the middle of the question and are mostly to do with the number of weeks an abortion should still be performed at rather than concrete black and white judgements.

But I can’t imagine any of us making a big deal over it, partly because here in the UK it’s not as fragile a law, but also because it’s not something we’ll ever have to experience in the way a woman could. I don’t really feel qualified to press my opinion on something I have absolutely no personal knowledge in.

Amanda, I once met an anti-abortion dude who appeared not to have major issues related to sexuality and women.  He and his wife lived together before they were married and he supports feminism and GLBT rights.  But I knew him for five years before I heard (and was shocked by) his views on abortion.  I am sure your rule applies 100% to guys who get in your face about it.

I’m a liberal guy that thinks reproductive rights are one of the most pressing issues in existence in America, but I also know for certain that, at least in the circles I run in, I’m in the stark minority.

Hmm - I tend to view abortion rights issues the same way I view homosexual rights issues. If I’m not “passionate” about it, it’s in the same way most of the feminists on this group are not “passionate” about homosexual rights - we support them, we get pissed off at particularly egregious violations, and we wish the real activists well.

Oh and DAGCM, I do have to kind of agree with P_P when he says that report isn’t enough for a sweeping statement like the one you made. The study does show teenage pregnancies rising slightly in 2006, but after falling for the six years previously a single year rise isn’t definitive evidence in itself. At least not without corresponding evidence from the years following. Not taking sides, just pointing out it’s not proof that ‘abortions went up’ during the Bush presidency.

Anyone dumber than a stick is eligible to be banned from here.

I don’t think he’s dumb, he just has awful opinions. And is apparently harassing the writers. I don’t always read the comment sections but Amanda said it. I would have figured ongoing harassment would be the fastest way to get banned.

P_P, since that seems more appropriate to call you that, you do notice that the Guttmacher document is copyright 01/2010?

Yes. But the data the report is based on is only up to 2006. That means its only a year more recent than mine. Not that this really matters… I have no idea honestly why we are even arguing this point…

It’s known as glass houses and stones, looser, aside from using language that demonstrates you have all the emotional stability of a 10 year old…

The glass house and stones metaphor would only make sense if I had previously pointed out a random typo you made… since I didn’t you can’t really call me a hypocrite for calling you on it.

Thanks for demonstrating my point, and still evading how pro-life you would be after the baby has left the sluts’ mothers’ womb.

I’m in support of government assistance like TANF, Medicaid, WIC, etc for low income families - although even if I wasn’t I don’t think that would some how make me wrong in my moral opposition to abortion.

To add to the argument with the troll, briefly: the questions get asked in so many different ways that polls aren’t very useful for gauging actual public sentiment regarding abortion.  It’s easy to phrase the question so the respondent is basically free to judge bad sluts who want bad slutty abortions.

While it is true to some extent that polls on abortion vary - when you look at polls that actually ask respondents when they think abortion should be legal i.e. never, rape or incest, only the first trimester, never, etc. you tend to get about 20% saying they should never be legal and about 20% saying they always should be legal. The remaining 60% fall somewhere in between - wanting at least some abortions to be permitted but falling short of thinking anything goes. 

When someone posted here that 85% of America was pro choice it really struck me with just how out of touch that person was.

I’m so tired of Progressive’s bullshit.  I think he’s been banned before.  Like most wingnuts, he can’t take no for an answer when it comes from a woman.  He thinks he owns our blogs, our homes, our uteruses. 

But, no.

I’m simply not in the mood to tolerate someone who has such unreasonable hatred towards women.  Some days, being hated for no good reason really is exhausting.

Amanda, I once met an anti-abortion dude who appeared not to have major issues related to sexuality and women.  He and his wife lived together before they were married and he supports feminism and GLBT rights.  But I knew him for five years before I heard (and was shocked by) his views on abortion.

It’s not that I don’t think there’s exceptions.  I’m sure there are.  But I’ve been amazed at how, in all the years I’ve done this, I haven’t met a single one.  And ones that initially seem to be exceptions, when grilled, start coughing up weird ideas about sexuality and disgust with it.  Sometimes it’s not even on the surface, really.  Which is why you get a lot of switchers on this issue, more than most, when adolescents grow up.  It’s easy to get virgins to be like, “Sex is weird and important and serious and if you screw up, you should be punished.”  People with experience are often switchers.

re: #29, #31, et al.

OldFeminist, I was talking (maybe carelessly) in a general way about how the “average” pro-choice person approaches the issue of abortion, not making a value judgment on it or stating my own opinion.  I was trying to make the same point that you and other commenters made in complaining about the “can’t we all agree abortion is abhorrent?” canard.  Many (possibly even most) supporters of choice are uncomfortable with abortion in itself so their support is equivocal and entails an effort of rationalization which kills their enthusiasm, hence the intensity gap gap.

Getting back to the gender issue that Amanda’s post was about, it may be that pro-choice men are more equivocal about support for abortion than women, because it’s not about their bodies.  “My body, my choice” is a much firmer statement than “her body, her choice.”  Since it wasn’t clear from my earlier comment, personally I’m unequivocal that women should have absolute freedom of choice.

I get really impatient with “can we all just agree that it is abhorrent?” arguments. No, we can’t.

True.  Now, if those arguments are badly phrased versions of “having to get an abortion sucks in the same way that having to get your wisdom teeth pulled or your glasses prescription updated sucks”, then it’s time to glower a bit and ask people if they know what they sound like.  I happen to think almost all medical procedures suck when you’re actually experiencing them, but the results make them worthwhile.  It’s the second half of the sentence that has to be emphasized.

The glass house and stones metaphor would only make sense if I had previously pointed out a random typo you made… since I didn’t you can’t really call me a hypocrite for calling you on it.

Of course, to examine your approach would mean you’d have to be honest with yourself, which you seemingly aren’t when you use such terms as looser toward others who differ than you about bodily autonomy,

Goodby, “looser”!

Of course, to examine your approach would mean you’d have to be honest with yourself, which you seemingly aren’t when you use such terms as looser toward others who differ than you about bodily autonomy,

I said “you lose” not that you were a loser - learn to read.

Oh and btw, I am gone now… me and all my unreasonable exhausting hate…

We have a flounce, ladies and gentlemen!

Byeeee!

I think the lack of urgency on this issue has to do with age and the continuing fracturing of the left as much as it has to do with a gender gap. I come across other gay men all the time who may be pro-choice but are passive in regards to this issue in general or gay men who believe that the issue does not directly concern them so it is therefore not worth their time. Similarly, I come across heterosexual people who are pro-gay rights in opinion but are passive about expressing it or doing anything about it because my rights aren’t their issue. The general problem seems to be a lack of a strong enough coalition on our side and a lack of understanding that all our rights and battles are inter-related. I think the important concentration on identity politics of the left in the last couple of decades, at the cost of some of the old broader economic ideals of the old left, is partly to blame for this. The Right has also very successfully pushed a me-first mindset into our culture in general and that has seeped into the Left just by be surrounded by it so heavily.

While it is true to some extent that polls on abortion vary - when you look at polls that actually ask respondents when they think abortion should be legal i.e. never, rape or incest, only the first trimester, never, etc. you tend to get about 20% saying they should never be legal and about 20% saying they always should be legal. The remaining 60% fall somewhere in between - wanting at least some abortions to be permitted but falling short of thinking anything goes.
When someone posted here that 85% of America was pro choice it really struck me with just how out of touch that person was.

Wow.  So you’re saying 20% of Americans are anti-choice.  The other 80% believe that a woman should have a choice, though some prefer more limitations to that choice than others.

You’re bitching about 5%?  You believe 80% of Americans want abortion to be legal, but saying that the majority of Americans want abortion to be legal is really misguided and out of touch?

I think you really did violate the stick rule with that one, though apparently you’re already busy flounching.

I think the confusion with the original article and young people vs young women is because it only includes interviews and quotes of women and those women were concerned about the dirth of young women in NARAL and active in protests, etc.

I said “you lose” not that you were a loser - learn to read.

I said you used the term “loose”, which is technically correct:

I win = you loose = deal with it.

Except that losers don’t know how to spell the word lose that = deal with it

Let’s just rename you Reactionary_Varlet and have done with it.

We have a flounce, ladies and gentlemen!

Yes, from someone who could make Paul Lynde appear butch by comparison.

There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but on the whole, male liberals tend to butt out.

Until there’s an election coming up and they want women to support their candidate. Then they’re all, “Hey ladies, have you heard about this thing called Row Vee Wade?” See it every 2-4 years.

I don’t think I’ve ever been eligible to vote in an election in which. all else being equal, I would have voted for the anti-choice candidate if I had no opinion on abortion rights. In 1998 I think both major-party gubernatorial candidates were pro-choice to some degree*. So it’s hard for me to say if I’ve ever “voted pro-choice”; I’ve never had to weigh it against my positions on other issues.

*Of course, only a man would recognize degrees of pro-choice-ness.

I think the point is that men are privileged to be able to ignore abortion rights.  They usually don’t get burned by lack of abortion access, and in fact benefit if it’s not their fetus because that woman has probably been knocked out of competition career-wise or education-wise, temporarily or permanently.

They can phrase it as “not our business” but I don’t really buy that.  It’s not your business what I do with my body.  It is your business if someone else tries to tell me what to do with my body, just as it’s your business if anyone else plays bully on the schoolyard.  It’s not enough to not personally oppress me.

No, HO, not only a man.  A woman with a whole box of needs of which choice is only one will do the same.  I will not vote for an anti-choice candidate, and having lived 13 of my post-voteable years in ID it came up,  but that doen’t mean I will vote for a pro-choice candidate running against them, especially a nominally pro-choice candidate, who I find otherwise wholly unacceptable.

It’s a joke at every org I’ve ever encountered, how rare the male presence is in their ranks.

It’s been thirty-seven years since Roe v. Wade was decided. Unless you feel your rights are personally being threatened, there’s little motivation to fight for what people already have and have had for years. Nobody in the Sixties worried about the return of alcohol Prohibition, even though the WCTU was still active at that point, and many cities and counties across the country were “dry.”

Hector B. - You heard of conscience clauses? Crisis pregnancy centers? Parental notification laws? Laws that mandate ultrasounds for women seeking abortions so they “know what they’re doing?” Laws that allow anti-choice groups more and more access to harass clinics, leading to fewer and fewer providers? The law passed in Utah just recently opening women up to criminal investigations if they have a miscarriage? All the other myriad ways in which Roe v Wade has been chipped away at to make it essentially meaningless?
If you’re pro-choice, you should know that abortion rights don’t begin and end with Roe v Wade.

snobo: I, like most people, do not live in Jesusland. Utah has never not sucked, so nothing they try to pull there would surprise me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jesusland_map.svg

In fact, I would say that the majority of states that try to restrict abortion try to restrict alcohol consumption as well. I just stay the hell out of such states.

Good thing for you you have a choice.

@90: About where he lives, you mean? ‘Cause I think a fair number of people can pick which state they live in. At least, once they’re 18.

@91 - Yeah once they’re 18 and even beyond then it’s a bit more complicated than that and no matter where people happen to live you’re talking about the bodily autonomy of actual human people - it’s a bit insulting to equate that with someone’s ability to buy booze on Sundays.

Yeah states rights if they didn’t want to be born slaves they should have chosen better parents.

Right? And those state laws that prohibit the rights of women and girls do nothing to reinforce sexism in other arenas like the workplace or on a national or global scale. Everything’s an isolated incident with no broader implications. Ever.

Yeah of course we don’t want states that are backwards hellholes, but I don’t have a problem with variation between the states, either. (Do I think that the variation should all fall within the bounds of basic human rights like abortion access? Sure. And I think that Utah, for example, is starting to cross the line into rights violations.) But there are certainly some people who don’t mind living in places that I would hate to live in, and vice versa, so I don’t think that every state needs to have identical laws either. I theoretically don’t mind having some conservative states as long as living in them is optional—I don’t necessarily see it as a slippery slope towards every state following suit, though it can be.

Also, I’m not clear… are we equating abortion with buying booze or with slavery here? I’m confuzzled. :p

Bagelsan, sorry it’s so confusing.  I said nothing about alcohol.  In my comment, lack of access to abortion is being compared with slavery.  In that, if you’re born in the wrong place, because your parents live there, your rights are infringed upon. 

Slavery is the obviously much worse condition, but rights are rights, and differential withholding of fundamental human rights across states is wrong. 

Lots of under-18 women need abortions.  Lots of 18-and-over women need abortions and don’t have the funds or skills to immediately relocate on their 18th birthday.  You’re asking these women to bear huge costs just to have control over their own bodies.  What if men were only allowed to jack off in fourteen states?  You’d see some hell raised then.

I don’t see it as some states sort of almost crossing into human rights violations.  I think many states already have abortion statutes that infringe upon my bodily autonomy, with their requirements that I “reflect upon my sins,” or make it so difficult for providers to perform abortions that there’s very little choice on where to go, or where it’s not mandated that health insurance for women cover abortion, and so on.

On thing to consider: women aren’t taken as seriously as men. When a man speaks about an issue, it becomes more valid.

hat if men were only allowed to jack off in fourteen states?  You’d see some hell raised then.

Or if pharmacists denied men their boner pills because they go against God’s will and promote promiscuity. Or if there were big ongoing national debates whether men should be allowed to have vasectomies, or if it’s sufficient that they be thoroughly counseled on the consequences of their actions. I’d love to see that.

So are men in Missouri and Nebraska and Utah—everywhere they are threatened—coming out to support abortion rights?

See the whole point of the post is that pro-choice men generally don’t do much of anything anywhere to support abortion rights. They do mention Roe v Wade a lot when they want women to support their candidate, but beyond that, nothing.

The anti-choice side though, they’ve got male activists coming out their ears.