How many sides can there be?

Hugh Hewitt asks a good question in the Weekly Standard:

George W. Bush collected around 59,750,000 votes, about 3.5 million more than did John Kerry.

What percentage of Bush's votes were pro-choice, I wonder? Thirty? Twenty? Ten?

Even if it is only 10 percent, those 5.7 million votes provided Bush with his margin of popular-vote victory. Should the first action of the new Senate be the announcement that pro-choice Republicans will not be trusted with power?(Via Glenn Reynolds.)

10%? Actually, the much cited CNN poll narrows it down a little further. Voters were specifically asked whether abortion should be legal, and the survey broke down their voting patterns as follows (Nader omitted):
ABORTION SHOULD BE....

Always Legal (21%) BUSH 25% KERRY 73%

Mostly Legal (34%) BUSH 38% KERRY 61%

Mostly Illegal (26%) BUSH 73% KERRY 26%

Always Illegal (16%) BUSH 77% KERRY 22%

Clearly, anti-abortion voters favored Bush, but if the always/sometimes legal vote is broken down into numbers.......

  • ABORTION ALWAYS LEGAL:

    5.25% (21% of 25%) of 115,409,172 voters

    6,058,982 Bush voters

  • ABORTION MOSTLY LEGAL:

    12.92% (34% of 38%) of 115,409,172 voters

    14,910,865 Bush voters

  • Which means depending on how "pro-choice" is defined, Bush received at least 20 million votes from pro-choice voters.

    Here's a definition of "pro-choice" from a website which tries not to take sides:

    Within the term of Pro-Choice exists a spectrum of political opinion, ranging from the idea that all abortions, under any circumstances, should be legal, to the idea that only abortions in certain circumstances should be legal (such as pregancy by rape or incest), or that abortions should only be legal until a certain date in the progression of the pregnancy (such as the third trimester, which is generally considered the period that the fetus could survive outside of the body).
    Well, according to that definition, even the third category ("Mostly Illegal") would be considered "pro-choice" -- which means that (at least by one interpretation) the vast majority (i.e. 42 million) of Bush voters could be considered "pro-choice."

    I know this may sound crazy, but I'm just looking at the data.

    The CNN statistics, of course, highlight the difficulty in defining terms. But let's look at the hard core anti-abortion group -- those who believe abortion should always be illegal:

  • ABORTION ALWAYS ILLEGAL:

    12.32% (16% of 77%) of 115,409,172 voters

    14,218,410 Bush voters

  • And finally, here's Bush's largest group -- those who believe abortion should be "Mostly Illegal."

  • ABORTION MOSTLY ILLEGAL:

    18.98 (26% of 73%) of 115,409,172 voters

    21,904,661 Bush voters

  • I don't know what "mostly illegal" means, but I suspect that unless it was defined clearly as meaning, say, "except in cases of rape or incest," the group might include people who'd properly belong in the "mostly legal" category. For example, some people who would limit legal abortion to the first trimester might think this means they want abortion "mostly illegal" without realizing that the vast majority of abortions are already performed in the first trimester.

    Here's the breakdown of Bush's vote numbers, listed in order, from lowest to highest:

    6,058,982 "ABORTION ALWAYS LEGAL" for Bush

    14,218,410 "ABORTION ALWAYS ILLEGAL" for Bush

    14,910,865 "ABORTION MOSTLY LEGAL" for Bush

    21,904,661 "ABORTION MOSTLY ILLEGAL" for Bush

    As anyone can see, it's a mixed bag. Bush certainly received a higher percentage of anti-abortion than pro-abortion votes, but in terms of numbers of actual voters, those who believe abortion should always be illegal are Bush's second lowest group. Interestingly, Bush got a higher percentage (25%) of the hard core, "pro-choice," always-legal group than did Kerry of the hard-core "pro-life," always-illegal group (22%).

    The problem with analyzing this data politically is that if Bush had failed to win the votes in any one of these groups, he'd have lost the election.

    Fortunately for him (and, I think, for most citizens) the war on terror was considered far more important than the war for or against abortion.

    And despite all the arguments back and forth, there's one guy whose opinion doesn't seem to be getting heard: the guy for whom all the above decided to vote, notwithstanding their opinions on abortion.

    posted by Eric on 11.11.04 at 08:17 PM





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    Comments

    I think this also points out the value of the pro-life vote to Kerry. Just over 4 million Kerry voters believe abortion should always be illegal, for example.

    Interesting stats.

    a guy in pajamas   ·  November 12, 2004 11:02 AM

    [moonbat ON] Well, that doesn't count because all of those pro-choice Bush voters were OBVIOUSLY voting against their own best interests and were equally obviously duped by the Rove/Ascroft propoganda campaign to unfairly villify Kerry.[/moonbat]

    How was that? ;)

    [I know I didn't mispell enough words, but I'm too tired to write in moonbat while channeling one.]

    Ironbear   ·  November 12, 2004 01:32 PM

    Moonbat. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

    Anyway, I'm probably in that "Mostly Illegal" camp. In the first few weeks, OK. But, after that, the only justification I can see for abortion is to save the woman's own life. A few years ago, I was strongly pro-abortion (or "pro-choice"), but I've changed my views on that over the years, and it was mainly the pro-abortion people who persuaded me in that direction.

    I agree completely with "my body, my choice". The only problem is that there's another body involved, too. Abortion is not an act between consenting adults. By definition, it involves a very non-consenting non-adult.

    I have concluded that Roe vs. Wade was an unfortunate decision in a number of ways. It has aborted:

    1) the lives of several million unborn human beings,

    2) by association: respect for the judicial branch of our government at all levels, the most important branch, the one check on the tyranny of the legislative and executive branches,

    3) by association: respect for the right to privacy,

    4) by association: respect for the rights of homosexuals.

    Ever since Roe vs. Wade, the enemies of freedom have been able to cry "JEWdicial activism!", "JEWdicial tyranny!" whenever a court upholds individual rights, and to associate that with bloody fetuses. Because of Roe vs. Wade, they have been able to deny all rights to privacy, particularly sexual privacy, to denounce Lawrence & Garner vs. Texas (2003), Stanley vs. Georgia (1969), and Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965), pointing to dead babies and crying "See! _That's_ what the concept of privacy leads to!" With the help of the media, they routinely associate homosexuality, homosexuals' rights, homosexual marriage, and sexuality as such, with abortion.

    I'm opposed to that. Abortion is a completely different kind of issue than contraception, homosexuality, masturbation, pornography, etc.. It is more in a category with capital punishment or war, i.e., an act of killing that needs justification. I'm far from being a pacifist, but I still agree with G. K. Chesterton that "We must either face the things we do or leave off doing them." No truer words were ever spoken.

    I would like to see a real, honest debate on abortion. To hear the pro-abortionists tell it, you'd think the only reason anybody ever had for opposing abortion was to keep women "barefoot and pregnant". Not true. Not true at all. That may well be the motive of some, but it's certainly not the motive of liberals like Nat Hentoff nor of the growing number of women, such as the Queen of All Evil, who are pro-life.

    In fact, more women than men are pro-life today, and more young people, too, and also black people. Along with blue-collar workers (largely Catholic), these are the biggest constituencies of the Democratic party. Here's some un-asked-for political advice: If the Democrats want to start winning Presidential elections, and get the House and Senate back, they're going to have to get out of the pocket of NARAL, and start having at least as big a "tent" on this issue as the Republicans now have.

    Interesting questions about it all....

    I must add another point: I fully understand and can easily relate to, the libertarian arguments for keeping abortion legal, or not having the government criminalize it.

    But there is obviously no libertarian argument for the current position of the Democratic party (which was Kerry's during the campaign), i.e., that the government should subsidize it. How do you make abortion "safe, legal, and rare" while subsidizing it? It's an old law of economics that you get more of what you subsidize. And, why should those who believe that abortion is murder be forced to pay for it? What about _their_ choice?

    But, of course you understand that your discussion deals exclusively with the outcome, and not with the process. How many Bush/Kerry voters believe both that abortion should be always legal AND that the Supreme Court should keep that question away from the People and their elected representatives? No one knows.

    Mark Basich   ·  November 13, 2004 10:21 PM


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