It seems the abortion industry never stops putting its positive spin on the bad news it continues to receive. Bad news for the abortion industry in recent years has been the fact that a growing number of Americans oppose abortion altogether or, if they support abortion, they want to see stricter limits on it.
Mark Twain once said, “Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
For example, the “statistics” and rationale Tara Culp-Ressler used in a recent post on the ThinkProgress blog would lead you to think that Americans are either ambivalent about abortion or confused about what they think. “According to pollsters,” she writes, “the country has barely budged on this issue since the procedure was first legalized in 1973.”
Culp-Ressler and those she quotes, several of whom appear to be echo-chambers for the abortion industry, also contend that pollsters have been asking the wrong questions. Rather than ask, “Should abortion be legal?” The column contends that a pollster should ask, “Do you think women should be able to access abortion?”
Well, that’s precisely what CBS News asked in its March 21-24 poll, and it found that 59 percent of Americans don’t want abortions permitted or else want more abortion limits. Exactly one-fourth (25 percent) said abortion should not be permitted at all. Nearly half of the Democrats polled said abortion should either be available but under stricter limits (28 percent) or not permitted at all (18 percent).
Other polls are even more troubling for abortion advocates. According to a January 2014 Marist poll, 84 percent of Americans believe abortion should be restricted (within the first three months of pregnancy or in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother) or never allowed at all. This same poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans who believe in abortion restrictions want to see the U.S. Supreme Court hand down a ruling to support those limits. That, of course, is what the pro-abortion community fears the most, and it is why it keeps churning out biased studies and research projects.
More importantly, as elected state legislators respond to the will of their constituents, more and more laws which restrict abortion have been passed by state legislatures around the nation. Laws, including regulation of abortion clinics, limits on specific procedures, informed consent requirements and waiting periods, granting legal status to the unborn, and restrictions on abortion after a certain point in the pregnancy are being enacted in state after state and, for the most part, are being upheld by the courts.
It is insulting and demeaning to the American public to suggest that they just don’t understand this important life issue and, if only they were asked the “right” questions, would surely support a pro-abortion agenda and the quest of abortionists for bottom-line profits.
If we are going to talk about facts, one simply cannot ignore the truth that more Americans than ever before appear to recognize the brutality and inhumanity of ripping apart a child within what is supposed to be the safety of her mother’s womb. That’s why the facts actually demonstrate that most Americans want laws that protect the health and well-being of a woman and the life of her unborn child.
These facts present a dim picture for the future of the abortion lobby. Perhaps that is what has made its statistics so pliable.
America Supports Life, Not Death?
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