Revisionist Mystery: Republicans In Denial
By Bonnie Chernin Rogoff (12/01/04)
One week before Election Day, I met with a group of anxious Democrats who tentatively predicted a Bush victory. They argued that the key issue is national security, and as long as American voters felt safe and supported our presence in Iraq, they'd swamp the polls for Bush. During this discussion, I asked this group of liberals the following question: If abortion were the main issue, how would President Bush fare on Election Day? The group stared at me in disbelief. If that were the case they lectured, the President had better start packing, for America is pro-choice.
Then Election Day happened, resulting in a moral crusade for President Bush and a net gain of three pro-life conservative Senate seats. During a post-election follow-up, my dejected friends expressed shock and disappointment, predicting "anti-choice" judges, an immediate reversal of Roe v. Wade, the destruction of women's rights and the so-called progressive movement they believe in. Significantly, they assumed all Republicans would unite and take immediate steps to get the pro-life political process rolling.
For the past month, however, a disturbing trend has begun, hastened by the news that the Senate would support pro-abortion Senator Arlen Specter as Judiciary Committee chairman. Some Republicans started a campaign of denial, minimizing the significance or even the existence of the pro-life mandate won by President Bush. To be sure, these are the fiscally conservative Republicans and they see the GOP through the lens of low taxes and national security. These "neo-cons" disdain the morally conservative right wing of the party. They acknowledge one social issue the election hedged upon - the rejection of gay marriage - but dismiss a pro-life mandate among the majority of voters, pointing to exit polls as proof.
The problem with exit polls is that they are only a snapshot; an instant reaction taken at a given moment reflecting moods, not values trends. Comparing different polls surveying Americans over a period of time can assess a more accurate representation of voter values. A clear picture of America's moral sense can be established.
A May 2004 CBS News poll shows that 62% of Americans surveyed believe abortion should not be available or there should be stricter limits. This is consistent with a December 2003 Wirthlin poll that also indicates a 62% pro-life position and a November 2002 Zogby poll showing pro-life support at 61%. In all these polls, people surveyed either supported an outright ban on abortion, or believed abortion should be legal only to save the mother's life, or for rape and incest. The Wirthlin poll indicated that only 35% of Americans felt abortion should always be legal, and of that number 22% would limit "choice" to the first three months of pregnancy.
Recent trends show Americans shifting toward a pro-life position. A January 2003 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed 78% of those surveyed support a 24 hour waiting period and 73% favor parental consent for minors. Seventy-two percent of respondents support a law requiring a husband be notified when a married woman has an abortion and 70% support a ban on partial birth abortion. In a 1992 Gallup poll, 31% of respondents felt abortion should be legal under all circumstances. This was down to 24% by the 2003 poll.
Wirthlin Worldwide conducted a post-election nationwide poll and the results were reported in the November 2004 issue of the National Right to Life News. The pro-life vote played a very significant role in the Bush/Cheney victory, with forty-two percent of respondents saying that abortion affected the way they voted (of these, 56% voted for President Bush representing 24% of the electorate). As NRLC Executive Director Dr. David N. O'Steen points out: "The Wirthlin poll also reaffirmed that the majority of Americans oppose the current policy mandated by Roe v. Wade which allows abortion for any reason, even as a method of birth control, until "viability" and later if "health," Including "emotional health," is claimed as a reason."
When asked in most national polls, Americans will respond that they would not overturn Roe v. Wade. However, the law is never accurately presented. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted on November 3-5 2004 asks: "The Supreme Court ruling called Roe v. Wade made abortion in the first three months of pregnancy legal. Do you think President Bush should nominate Supreme Court justices who would uphold the Roe v. Wade decision, or nominate Supreme Court justices who would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision?" Sixty-one percent of respondents said Roe should be upheld while only 34% would overturn Roe. Similar results were reported in a January 2002 FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll, in which fifty-nine percent of respondents said they'd let Roe v. Wade stand; 26 percent said they'd overturn Roe.
These two national polls do not inform those surveyed that Roe (with its companion law Doe v. Bolton) legalized abortion for any reason for the first six months of pregnancy, and for almost any reason during the final trimester. When the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in January 2003 asked about late term abortions, 68% of respondents stated abortion should be illegal in the second trimester and 84% believe it should be illegal in the third trimester. Is there any doubt these respondents would oppose Roe v. Wade if they knew that law allowed birth control abortions for all nine months of pregnancy?
Democratic pollster and Kerry campaign advisor Stanley Greenberg recognized a shift toward President Bush and called abortion the most important single issue among cultural values voters. However, some Republicans are on a pro-abortion mission as extreme as the Democrats, and they continue to distort election results and write off the pro-life majority as a tedious component of the GOP. They remember the mid-term elections of 2002 and all the pro-life gains we made then. That is why they are now desperate to "correct" the meaning behind our substantial gains in 2004. Judicial nominations and potential Supreme Court vacancies leave too much hanging in the balance. It is imperative that pro-life Republicans write to their Congress members and remind them what Americans really voted for.
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