This polling data is nonsense.

Every single time any issue relating to abortion has come up in a referendum fashion, the 'pro-choice' side has won. My goodness, partial-birth abortion, which is little better than whacking the kid with a hammer as it is being delivered, won in Colorado, a state which went for Dole in 1996.

What is true about the abortion issue is that most people for whom it is the most important issue are in the 'pro-life' column. Another truism though is that Americans tend to be tolerant people so a candidate who makes the abortion issue the sole basis or even the primary basis of his campaign is pretty much doomed to failure everywhere.

Simply put, contrary to the approach of both sides of the abortion issue, most women who get them do not do so gladly. They do not say I'll get my abortion at 11 and my nails done at 2. It is a difficult personal decision, over which they struggle both before and after. Americans for the most part see this when they meet women who get abortions or have gotten them. Thus, the clear distaste of the electorate for the positions which are less restrictive.

Candidates who send postcards of dead fetuses to the electorate always lose, as do candidates who stand outside of Catholic Churches yelling 'Keep your rosaries out of my ovaries.'

We've had twenty-four years now of prtesidents who are actually or rhetorically anti-abortion. Congress is overwhelmingly pro-life. It doesn't seem to hurt at the polls.

Don't forget what Wall Street Journal editorials call "The Roe Effect".

The Roe Effect is that pro-lifers tend to not abort their kids and raise them pro-life, whereas pro-aborts are more likely to abort their precious little pregancy tissues.

This means proportionally fewer pro-abort kids will be born to raise with abortion rights beliefs.

After a few generations, who outnumbers whom?

And which of the two eventually goes extinct?

Since Roe v Wade has abortion been reduced in any substantive way, despite 24 years of purportedly pro-life officialdom?

Bart:

Yes, abortion rates are down but real change requires a Court majority. The right to abortion is a legal fiction that needs to be erased.

First change public opinion in a substantive and demonstrable way. Then change the law. Otherwise we'll be fighting this tedious battle, disrupting our political system for the next century.

Is everyone so sure abortion rates are down? I know this is Britain, but I could swear I saw a similar article about the U.S. this week. Just can't find it.

Peter:

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040219-110958-2130r.htm

Public opinion has never favored abortion and has turned even more dramatically against it in recent years. How many should die while you try to convince the Left they're wrong?

God aborts as many as people do.

If public opinion is so 'anti-abortion' why is it that every single referendum on the matter has favored the pro-choice position? The reality is that Americans accept the notion that there is disagreement about the issue. The issue is not whether Americans believe that abortion is right or wrong. The issue is instead that Americans pretty much universally accept the notion that people can reasonably disagree on the matter, and that those disagreements should be respected. Thus, extremists on both ends are treated to a response from normal people along the lines of 'Talk to the Hand.'

The important polling result is not whether Americans feel abortion at any point is wrong. It is instead whether the government should prevent people who want an abortion from getting one. The referendum results and the remarkable lack of success of social conservatives in Haute Bourgeoise neighborhoods from NYC to LA to SF to Chicago to Atlanta should be instructive.

Bart:

What are you talking about? You can't outvote the Constitution in public referenda. Is it your position that the overwhelming majority in Congress was out of step with their constituents? All of them?

Jeff:

He's entitled--you aren't.

OJ,

This may come as a shock to you but the Constitution was written by men on parchment in Philadelphia, not by the Lord on stone tablets at Mt Sinai. It can be changed. Referenda are by far the most accurate snapshot of where the voters are on a given issue. Many states specifically provide for referenda to change the State Constitution.

The Unitarian Church and the Union for Reform Judaism have both stated that abortion should be legal. The RC Church and the Orthodox Union have diametrically opposite positions. So where on earth do you get the notion that the Constitution must be interpreted as banning abortion? That the Constitution must be interpreted to support some sectarian positions on important matters, central to faith? Since decent men of faith obviously disagree about the matter, it is incumbent on government to take the more permissive position or else the Freedom of Religion protections of the First Amendment are a nullity.

Your comment about Congress displays a laughable ignorance. Why has the Human Life Amendment not passed if our elected officials are so pro-life? It doesn't even get out of committee. In NY, California, NJ, and many other states a pro-life candidate doesn't even get on the ballot above alderman, or else gets squashed when he does. Pataki, Giuliani and Schwarznegger are all pro-choice.

You can't change your state constitution to deprive someone of a federally guaranteed right according to the Court.

There is no Federally guaranteed Right-To-Life. Our Courts take that position, the legal profession through the ABA takes that position as do most legal scholars. Many religious denominations take that position as well. Roe v Wade ain't getting changed 100% in our lifetimes. The most the Federal Court will do is leave it to the States as it had been, correctly in my view, prior to Roe. If you want to create a Democratic party stampede to the polls, just appoint a doctrinaire pro-life majority to the Supreme Court.

Again, if Congress wanted to protect the unborn, it could pass the Human Life Amendment. It has not done so, thus, it must not be interested in protecting the unborn. Congressmen understand that taking a doctrinaire stance on the matter is death back home, for the most part.

Yes, "There is no Federally guaranteed Right-To-Life" was my point. There's a federally guaranteed right to an abortion.

The Federally-guaranteed right to an abortion is far from absolute. The SCT has allowed states to refuse to fund them, and it has allowed states to ban partial-birth abortion.

As it is, I think that Roe was improperly decided. It should be left to the States and there is no good reason why Utah and NY should have the same rules on the matter.

I don't like the notion of Star Chambers drawing up rights and restrictions out of whole cloth. Judicial interventionism of right(the anti-New Deal coalition) and left(the Warren Court) are equally evil. We need an elected judiciary which can be booted out by the voters if they produce unacceptable decisions.

I am a Catholic who is personally against abortion but doesn't believe that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. The question of the legality or illegality of abortion (i.e. is it the same as murder?) depends on one's religious belief. Does life begin at conception or at birth? Since the answer is based on religious opinion and I am a firm believer in the separation between church and state, abortion should remain legal.

That being said, the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church for condemning Catholic pro-choice politicians (i.e. John Kerry), despite the institution's own grievous failure in protecting children from pedophilia is infuriating. What I find more offensive are reports alleging that the staunchly pro-life President Bush paid for an illegal abortion in 1970 of a 15 year-old girlfriend he impregnated. What this election should be about is each man's actions and not the rhetoric that comes out of his mouth.