538.com addresses the recent Gallup "pro-life/pro-choice" poll

[Bill McBlueState]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/05/abortion-poll-roundup.html

There's a good point about the party ID of the sample being skewed unfairly toward Republicans, but here's the most interesting part:

In particular, GSS shows an exceptionally durable 80%-plus level of support for a "health exception," which happens to be the actual flash-point separating pro-life activists from the rest of the population. In other words, lots of "pro-life" Americans consistently, and over decades, favor an exception that pro-life activists adamantly consider a complete repudiation of the pro-life point of view.

[krispos42]

1. Interesting

Thanks.

[secondwind]

2. thanks for this post! looks like they polled a majority of moderates or independents.

[Bill McBlueState]

3. kick n/t

[stewert]

4. Not to Mention.................

The poll also says that 73% of Americans still believe abortion should be legal in most cases, and only 22% think it should never be legal. That 22% is the crazy far right nut-jobs like O'Reilly and his friends who claim to be pro-life, then they support the death penalty, go figure. They oppose all abortion, even it's it's rape or incest, which is really radical, yet they call us liberals radical.

[ColbertWatcher]

5. No wonder the GOP-controlled media is focusing on the 51% number ...

... and ignoring the details like 73% want abortion to be legal.

LOL!

Tsk, tsk, tsk, poor, poor fundy morans.

[Kaleva]

6. Only a small minority are strongly pro-choice or pro-life

Most are somewhere in the grey middle where the labels could be interchanged.