On abortion issue, Obama may have an edge
Dante Chinni
Posted: 07.28.2008 / 10:46 AM PDT
Abortion, long a divisive issue in American politics, has not played a large role in the 2008 presidential campaign up to now. Neither candidate has been eager to promote it.
But the issue isn’t going away. There are voters for whom abortion will always be a crucial issue. At some point – during the party platform discussions or the debates – the candidates will field questions on where they stand.
Abortion may well come up in a discussion of Supreme Court appointments. John McCain has indicated that he sees President Bush’s appointees, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, as good choices. Both justices are presumed to be opponents of Roe v. Wade, the court decision that gave women the right to an abortion. Barack Obama voted against both appointees at their Senate confirmation hearings.
Specifics from the candidates on abortion are hard to find. On Senator Obama’s website, his stance in favor of Roe is about a third of the way down an issue page devoted to “Women.” And while Senator McCain’s website says the candidate is committed to overturning Roe v. Wade, he hasn’t gone out of his way to trumpet his views on the issue.
Still, when abortion does rear its head in the 2008 campaign, a look at Patchwork Nation’s community types shows that Obama may have an edge.
The 11 community types in Patchwork Nation were analyzed using questions about abortion from a 2004 Annenberg survey – the latest county-by-county data available on the topic. The analysis found that most people seem to beopposed to more restrictions on abortion – particularly voters in battleground communities.
The places where the vote for president was closest in 2004 – and likely will be again in 2008 – all oppose increasing the restrictions on abortion. America’s wealthy suburban enclaves (“Monied ’Burbs” counties) are especially against tighter rules. Nearly 64 percent of those surveyed in those locales said they would “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose “making abortion more difficult.”
The numbers were almost as high in counties that are rapidly growing and diversifying (“Boom Towns”). In those places, more than 62 percent of those surveyed said they would “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose more abortion restrictions.
And roughly 55 percent of those who live in counties with large numbers of service workers (“Service Worker Centers”) felt the same way. If the question asks about “banning” abortion, the number of people who “somewhat” and “strongly” oppose such a move jumps across the board.
Given different wording of questions or different specifics, those polling numbers could move one way or the other, of course. But the figures suggest that after 35 years of debate and discussion, many Americans may be reluctant to further tinker with the nation’s abortion laws.
Thus the issue may have lost some of its power for the Republicans. And the past four years, with the appointments of two more conservatives to the high court, may help the Democrats and Obama make more of the issue in 2008. The county-by-county data on abortion also may help explain the McCain campaign’s tactics and approach to the election.
He seems to have based his strategy so far on winning moderate conservatives and centrists – the kinds of voters who live in the three county types listed above. To reach those voters, he has focused on his “maverick” image and how he is not a standard Republican.
In doing that – and not emphasizing issues like abortion – McCain hasn’t done much to ingratiate himself with cultural conservatives. These voters care deeply about abortion and consider it a make-or-break issue.
More than 50 percent of the people in rural farming counties (“Tractor Country”) “somewhat” or “strongly” favor more restrictions on abortion. That’s also true of about 46 percent of those in counties with high numbers of evangelical adherents (“Evangelical Epicenters”) and places with high numbers of retirees (“Emptying Nests”).
In Nixa, Mo., Patchwork Nation’s Evangelical Epicenter, several people said abortion was a key issue for them – one they voted on.
The question for McCain on abortion is really twofold. Will his antiabortion stance hurt him in the key counties where the 2008 race looks to be close? And will his lack of enthusiasm in declaring his position hurt voter turnout for him in culturally conservative strongholds?
July 28th, 2008 at 3:14 pm PDT
Dante Chinni writes: ‘ Specifics from the candidates on abortion are hard to find. ‘ That’s an incredible statement considering Obama’s limited record of Senatorial voting or clear position taking with the exception of his narrow minority vote favoring INFANTICIDE. That was his vote against the ‘born alive protection’ bill introduced to the legislature following a widely circulated story of a failed abortion attempt in which an fully viable infant managed to survive, get born, breathe on his own and yet the attending nurses were told to leave ‘it’ in the dirty utility room until ‘it’ died. So outraged were they that they instigated what has now become law. Even Hilary Clinton voted for this protection to newborn human beings. But Barack Obama voted against the bill. He further said publicly during his campaign that if one of his daughters made the mistake of getting pregnant he would not want her ‘punished’ with a baby. He had made his stand on this VERY CLEAR and taken abortion well beyond its limits to include INFANTICIDE! He has shown no recognition that for the black community in particular that the widespread and publicly funded Planned Parenthood’s campaign to abort as many black babies as they can is the genocide being perpetrated upon American Blacks and why they, as a group, are shrinking in percentage of the population while Hispanics are growing. The fact is abortion, which is a violation of the most basic civil human right to be alive is the single gravest issue of our day. John McCain may have some growing to do in the area of embryonic stem cell research vs the more reliable adult stem cell research but his stand against abortion has not changed in decades.
And while Dante Chinni is willling to acknowledge that this is a crucial issue for millions of voters Barack Obama publicly dismissed those who fight for human rights and life as ’same ol same ol’. Yes, Senator Obama -the fight to protect human rights for the most vulnerable among us and for the generation that we are losing will continue.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:11 pm PDT
The right to control your own body is the basic human right.When there are two claims to one body, the already born person with a brain, who had the body first takes precedence over the 3 inch fetus. Either a woman owns her own body or the government does. Another name for a person who doesn’t own her own body, is slave.
Many women have physical or mental problems such that pregnancy would cause them serious harm. Who are you to force them to sacrifice physical or mental health because of your personal beliefs?
Many abortions are performed because a fetus is severely deformed. Who are you to dictate that a family must must endure the agony of watching a terminally ill infant endure prolonged suffering before inevitable death?
Bearing a child must be a choice,not a government mandate. If you want the government to force women to bear unwanted children, you had best be prepared to pay for their up-bringing, medical care and education. When women don’t control their own lives, every one pays.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:49 pm PDT
Conception is a choice. Responsibility for the products of that choice belong to both the father and mother. The mother who as a responsible adult with a mind and freedom of choice should not be able to kill the separate human being whom she and the father willingly produced. The unborn are the most vulnerable and therefore deserve our greatest protection. And the mothers who are being coerced into aborting their babies are suffering as well. It is a moral regression in our whole species. The analogy of the slave is a good one. It is the analogy used by Dr. Alveida King, niece of MLK Jr who likens the unborn baby to a slave in the womb. You might want to search her name and find her web site. She has a list of video interviews and a blog that offers a personal first hand perspective. Consider the early feminest movement with the likes of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Friends who fought hard to win the rights for women to keep their babies and not be forced into abortions!! They would turn over in the graves if they could see what women and men have done to that cause. If we cannot justify the protection and preservation of our most vulnerable and our next generation then we have no grounds for any kind of justice or human rights beyond our wants and what society deems convenient. We are made by and for God our maker and to Him we owe our lives and the lives he entrusts to us. We need to show compassion and support for those who struggle to raise children. But if we have no compassion nor support the lives of children we will ultimately fail both as a society and as humans. Where there is a perception of a clash of rights we must always seek the common good - what is right for all and not just some.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:34 pm PDT
Well, Ms McCurry-
It’s obvious you’re anti- choice so evidently it’s o.k. with you if women lose their lives or health to illegal, unsafe abortion- as they did by the thousands in the pre- Roe bad old days.
And NO, conception is NOT always a choice nor is every pregnancy ‘willingly produced’. Roe was decided in the first place in response to the outcry from women to have safe abortion care protected in every state, not just some as it was before Roe. Since we have so little compassion and support for women and children- don’t you think that should come first- before forced childbirth?
As you feel so strongly that abortion is wrong, you certainly shouldn’t have one. I feel just as strongly that it is right and we must protect women with safe abortion care and not drive them back into criminal abortions- as my generation experienced and many died from. Women will continue to abort (as we have since ancient times), and if no safe way exists, we go the unsafe ways and hope for the best. So, don’t you have an abortion- but don’t try to impose your belief system on others daughters and granddaughters! We will continue to protect freedom of choice (including religion), and not allow anyone’s religious dogma to endanger our lives.
So, those who oppose abortion need to lead the way of compassion and support for the lives of children already born- not just the ‘pre-born’ or fetuses. By not doing this- you’ve already failed this society and humankind.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:01 am PDT
I believe we shouldn’t drive murderers to have to resort to barbaric killing with knives and strangulation. I believe we should provide murderers such as the likes of Bundy and Ramirez a legal and sanitary method of killing. It’s really only an issue of privacy and as long as it happens in the privacy of a home, I believe it should be left to the murder, his God and his spiritual advisor.
July 29th, 2008 at 7:27 am PDT
The candidates position on abortion seems fairly clear cut. We personally support choice and think it should be left up to the individual. We oppose abortion as a method of family planning and support more sex education and the availability of contraception. If one doesn’t get pregnant because they made the right choice in the first place either by abstinence or contraception, an abortion is not needed and the question becomes moot. So often, we see the hard core abortion opponents also oppose any effective family planning or education and yet they never propose any alternative other than abstinence which has consistently been proven not to work.
July 29th, 2008 at 6:05 pm PDT
We also support increased accurate sex education and access to better methds of contraception (including ‘artificial’ ones)- and no abortion provider I know of omits this provision in their care. The anti- choice forces (most)oppose all ‘artificial methods’ of contraception- leaving only the ‘rhythm’ method or abstinence- and we know how dismally those have failed; driving more women to abort.
I know of no abortion provider who isn’t working and hoping to put him/ herself out of business but in the meantime- we must keep it safe and legal and maybe someday: rarely needed.
McCain’s voting record and recorded responses tell us he will stack the SCOTUS with judges to criminalize abortion.
Obama’s tells us the opposite.
July 30th, 2008 at 2:09 pm PDT
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