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You call them pollsters, I call them something else

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NARAL released the results of what they consider a poll last week. I’ve always understood a poll to be a collection or sampling of opinions. NARAL may have been giving more opinion that they were hoping to collect.

Here are the descriptions used by the pollsters in survey calls made to women between May 29 and June 8:

Obama: “Barack Obama believes that the decision to have an abortion is profoundly difficult for women… As president, Obama… will work to reduce unintended pregnancies through prevention and education…”

McCain: “John McCain is pro-life, and on the issue of abortion, he opposes a woman’s right to choose… As president, he will nominate Supreme Court judges who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade…”

Doesn’t Obama sound like a stand-up guy, full of proactive ideas? Meanwhile, McCain comes across like a stuffy politician, in the worst sense of the word. Imagine what a pro-life group with as many scruples as NARAL would come up with. Reminding women of Obama’s support of late-term and partial-birth abortion, using terms like ‘killing unborn children,’ would definitely be a priority.

Alas, a pro-life group would never get away with it. But NARAL seems to. We aren’t plagued with this sort of double standard in Canada, are we?

We’re all pro-choice now: discuss

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That’s what they seem to claim here:

An overwhelming majority of Canadians continue to support women’s right to abort pregnancies, but a recent national survey found the country is split when asked who should foot the bill.

The online Angus-Reid poll — conducted June 4 and 5 of 1,000 adult Canadians — found 91% of respondents supported abortions under certain circumstances, and only 5% would outlaw it altogether.

There are more details on the way poll results are distributed if you follow the link. You decide whether support for abortion is somewhat inflated in the story. (Hello? I’m anti-abortion but would not count myself in the 5% who “would outlaw it altogether”, am I to be tabulated as “pro-choice” regardless of what I believe simply because I wouldn’t outlaw abortion altogether?) What I find particularly interesting is the comment by Carolyn Egan, of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics:

Canada is very solidly a pro-choice country. There is no doubt about that,” she told the Sun yesterday. “I think there is a minority in this country who feel abortion is wrong … but I think we’re moving beyond (the debate).”

If that were as true as she claims, why would so many pro-choice activists be so shrill so much of the time?

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Tanya adds:

Also, denying those women publicly funded abortions would force them to either go through a pregnancy they aren’t prepared for, or look for illegal abortion sources, she said.”

 

The US has a similar per-capita abortion rate as Canada does, and last time I checked, they don’t have publicly funded abortions. They do, however, have privately funded abortions, which would likely happen here through collective insurance.

 

All that aside, I’m amazed at how often pro-choice advocates like Egan bring up the issue of illegal abortions. They’re all about keeping visions of coat hangers dancing in everyone’s head. I dare say this is a ridiculous argument, and I’m calling it out as a scare tactic. There, I said it.

 

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Andrea adds: Well then. That does it. This here debate is clearly closed. Over. An Old Question, one not worth discussing. We’ve moved on. Everyone thinks abortion is OK. (Sometimes when people have to repeat themselves over and over, and strenuously, one wonders if they are protesting too much.)

Poll results worth repeating

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More women than men are pro-life. 34 per cent of Canadian women believe a baby should be protected from conception, as compared with 26 per cent of men. Read it here.

Now why bring out this news from October? Because information and good, old-fashioned logic are the main defence against those in favour of extreme choices, like abortion. And they’ll be out, guns a blazin’, to celebrate Morgentaler this month. [Editor’s note: “Guns a blazin'” is an idiom. No human rights tribunals, please, on how I have hurt some downcast feminist’s feelings over her passionately non-violent stance on everything but abortion. Thank you.]

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Rebecca adds:  

That’s interesting. I wonder what the reason is for the discrepancy. I think one function of readily available abortion, though, has been to weaken the link between sex and reproduction in a way that particularly lessens men’s responsibilities toward an unplanned child.

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