In the threadunder Fr. Imbelli's last post, my colleague Mollie Wilson O'Reilly refers to William Saletan's most recent Slate column, which relatesPresident Obama's Notre Dame commencement addressto new polling data about public attitudes toward abortion. Saletan's reading of Obama's speech is as nuanced as the speech itself, buttwo paragraphs in his analysis ofthe new survey caught my eye:
Beliefnet's Steve Waldman points to a recent Third Way survey in which 69 percent of Americans said abortion was the "taking of a human life," but 72 percent nevertheless said it should be legal. This is a long-standing pattern, underscored by a new Gallup poll in which for "the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life." The National Right to Life Committee thinks this poll discredits the notion that the country favors abortion rights. Conversely, NARAL Pro-Choice America thinks the poll numbers are fishy because they "do not square with the voting patterns in the last two elections cycles." But what if, once again, both are true? What if we're more pro-life morally than legally? Look at Gallup's numbers. They show a seven-point increase in the percentage of people calling themselves "pro-life" but only a three-point increase in the percentage who think abortion should be mostly or fully illegal.
I don't find the opposing data hard to square at all. NARAL is right: Voters last year elected a pro-choice president and added eight and 44 seats, respectively, to pro-choice ranks in the U.S. Senate and House. That's why you'd expect the "pro-life" number to go up in this year's Gallup poll. People feel more confident that abortion will stay legal, and therefore they're more willing to focus on their moral discomfort with it. The ups and down of abortion polling have always followed this reactive dynamic. Look again at Gallup's data. The percentage of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" trended up during the Clinton administration and then down during the Bush administration, right up until Democrats captured Congress in 2006.
Whatever the merits ofthis interpretation, it sidesteps the fact that, while the increase in the number of Americans willing to call themselves prolife is greater than the increase in the number of those who believe abortion should be mostly or fully illegal, both numbers increased. The moral issue and the legal issue areobviouslynot the same, but they are, for most self-described prolifers, more closely related than Saletan suggests. This is because mostprolifers regard abortion as not onlyimmoral but also -- and more importantly -- as an injustice,and questions of justice are inevitably political and legalquestions. Saletan writes.
Abortion is the classic multidimensional issue. Years ago, when I was writing a book about it, one person after another told me, "The issue is about " Each person ended the sentence differently. Eventually, I got the picture: The issue is about what the issue is about.
If, as most prolifers argue,the issue is about who gets counted as a member of the human community, then it is also a questionabout who will be protected by the law. One of the great successes of the prolife movement has been in reframingits own cause, so that it is understood -- at least by prolifers -- as an extension of the civil-rights movement rather than as an extension of the battle oversexual liberation.NARAL may find this perverse and opportunistic, but more and more Americanshavefound itpersuasive. As for NARAL's contention that the new poll numbersaren'tto be trusted because they "do not square with the voting patterns in the last two elections cycles," it is yet another instance of single-issue stupidity. Pace NARAL and too many prolifers, many Americanswho voted Democratic in the last two elections did notdo sobecause they were prochoice.
