Americans' View on Abortion Consistently Contradictory

[angus]

A solid majority long have felt that Roe v. Wade should be upheld. Yet most support at least some restrictions on when abortions can be performed. Most think having an abortion should be a personal choice. But they also think it is murder.

this isn't a contradiction.  First, the subset of all people polled who think abortion is murder is not the same as the subset as those who view it as a personal a choice.  that's important to keep in mind.  Second, since both views represent majorities, we canclude that the two subsets are nonvoid.  But this still isn't a contradiction.  It is possible that some may have values that trump the imperative not to commit murder.  I'm not saying such views are logical, but I am saying that you cannot conclude based on the data you present that there is any contradiction. 

Gabu, It's not like asking whether you like cats, and a majority say no, then turning around and asking whether you dislike cats, and a majority say yes.  That would be a contradiction, at least among the non-null intersection of the two majority subsets.  But the data only suggest two questions are asked:  Is abortion murder?  Should abortion of a fetus be a personal choice?  It is possible someone says yes to both, honestly, and from the point of view that one has a right to commit murder.  This isn't intended to justify such a position, but to describe that it isn't necessarily a logical contradiction.  (Now, we obviously need a definition of murder here to have an intelligent discussion.  If one holds to the narrowest point of view that murder not only means killing, but also means illegal killing, then you may have a case that it's a contradiction.  But if one uses the term murder only to mean killing a human, then it's not a contradiction.)

[angus]

Define murder.  Define it exactly before I can answer.

[angus]

okay, then we have three possibilities:  either there is a subset of those polled who either do not require justification for killing, or there is a subset of those polled who misunderstand the question, or there is a subset of those polled who have contradicted themselves.  Have I left anything out?  Doesn't really matter, since even with only these possibilities we can say that the view isn't necessarily a contradiction.

Part of the problem is that the "source" listed isn't really the source of the data, but only the source of someone's take on the data.  I'm doing a search right now to try to find the polling data source.  Let me know if you have the actual questions and the responses.  Maybe we can then sort out whether there really is a contradiction.

[angus]

"pro-life" and "pro-choice" are really stupid terms that I personally hate to no end.

I do as well and I have posted exactly this before.  But it's marketing.  No one claims to be a supporter of "...unrestricted abortion..." anymore, and almost no one claims to be a supporter of "...abortion rights..."  If you listen to speeches of politicians, they are supporters of "choice" and of "the right to choose"  It carefully scripted, focus group tested, marketing.  Similarly, very few politicians will claim, in public speeches, to be "anti-abortion"  They use phrases like "right to Choice" and "right to Life" respectively.  It is good marketing too.  Who doesn't like choice?  I'd rather be able to choose stuff than have stuff chosen by others for me.  And who doesn't like Life?  I'd rather live than die.  We have a fairly sophisiticated political machinery in this country, and they have done their research and their homework.

Can we yet discern whether folks were confused?  whether the wording was as the article implies, but doesn't actually say, it was?  or whether there is any contradiction?  A fourth possibility is that the writer has misled us.  After using several search terms and various Boolean operators, I could come up with something like 500 news stories, all of which could be traced back to a an AP story by Nancy Benac which used both terms "contradictory" and "conflicted"  More importantly, she introduces the sentence "But they also think it is murder" in her original article after she points out that 52 percent of those polled say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.  Yet there is no evidence presented anywhere that any poll respondent thinks it is murder.  I have reviewed the questions asked and the response choices.  Unless I am missing something, you have all been misled.  The article has morphed as it made its way through the wires, but nearly every permutation of the story says the same thing:  there's a contradiction.  But I do not find any contradiction from the polling data.  Here are three paragraphs that show up in almost every article, and I agree with them based on looking at the original questions and responses:

In this latest poll, 19 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in all cases; 16 percent said it should never be legal; 6 percent did not know. That left nearly three-fifths somewhere in between, believing abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.

Dicing the same data a different way, 52 percent of those surveyed thought abortion should be legal in most or all cases; 43 percent said it should be illegal most or all of the time.

The survey, taken Feb. 28-March 2, found that men's and women's views were similar, although men were a little more likely to be undecided.

But I see nothing in the original questions (and there were only two asked, as far as I can tell) that say a majority of respondents think abortion is murder.  There is no contradiction as far as I can tell.

Submitted for your perusal, the data:

1. Which comes closest to your opinion on abortion? Abortion should be . . .

• Legal in all cases, 19 percent

• Legal in most cases, 32 percent

• Illegal in most cases, 27 percent

• Illegal in all cases, 16 percent

• Not sure, 6 percent

2. Regardless of your opinion about abortion, do you think the federal government should decide whether abortion should be legal or not, or should each state government decide?

• Federal government should decide, 46 percent

• Each state government should decide, 43 percent

• Not sure, 11 percent