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[Sheb]

It may also be a polling artefact: persons that are against abortion will say they're against it in all case, forgetting about those moral dilemna like rape and incest. I should go and look up the exact questions they asked.

EDIT: The question was "Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstance, legal in some circumstance, or illegal in all circumstance." A lot of people probably answered illegal without thinking about those special, harder cases.

[Zangi]

Well... a lot of people do not think...

[palsch]

I linked this list of polls because it lets you compare wordings and options. I particularly the like the most recent Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation Poll options;

 "Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?"

Results: 19/36/25/17, 3% unsure.

So that's 17% saying illegal in all even when given the 'illegal in most' option. There is a similarly worded Pew poll down the page that shows similar results; 16% taking the illegal in all option. Finally there is the Virginia Commonwealth University Life Sciences Survey from 2010 that explicitly asked about rape. The wording;

 "Which of these comes closest to your views about abortion? A woman should be able to get an abortion if she decides she wants one no matter what the reason. Abortion should only be legal in certain circumstances, such as when a woman's health is endangered or when the pregnancy results from rape or incest. OR, Abortion should be illegal in all circumstances."

This pushed the percentage of those saying illegal in all circumstances down... to 15%.

The Gallup numbers are actually worse. The latest (2011) poll asking solely about cases of rape or incest showed 22% saying abortion should be illegal in those cases. It also showed 15% opposed when the woman's health is at risk and 13% opposed when her life is endangered.

[RedKing]

Recent story on NPR indicated that the Republican party is planning to unveil in Tampa, as one of their official platform planks, a call for a constitutional ban against abortion with no exemptions.

Seconded by CNN and WaPo.

That puts them at odds with at least 80% of the American population. So yeah, I don't think it's a strawman at this point. 
The fringe is officially running the show in the GOP.

It's actually kind of relieving. If they had stuck to running just on the economy, they might have had a chance against Obama. But they couldn't resist the urge to delve into the culture war, which is not a winning proposition for them in many parts of the country. I'm betting Team Romney is probably banging their heads into the wall and throwing darts at pictures of Todd Akin today.


EDIT: Rep. Steve King (R-IA) chimed in to back Akin and says "I've never heard of a girl getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest". Presumedly because his head is so far up his ass that his hearing is severely impacted.

DOUBLE-EDIT: Okay, so after reading the article fully, King's comment wasn't nearly so pants-on-head retarded, though it still implies that such a thing is incredibly rare.

[kaijyuu]

@palsch
I'm not really that surprised by any of those numbers. For that last one, with the mother's life being endangered, I'm willing to bet the people checking "always illegal" are assuming the child would live if the mother died (don't most such complications involve late term pregnancy anyway? so it's not a huge leap). A lot of people would choose an older person to die over a younger one.


The only opinion that would shock me would be those wanting both dead over having an abortion, but then again I want to strangle most deontologists who do everything on their arbitrary moral principle.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Recent story on NPR indicated that the Republican party is planning to unveil in Tampa, as one of their official platform planks, a call for a constitutional ban against abortion with no exemptions.

Oh my god, the GOP's party leaders are reactionary morons.

I've heard it said that all Obama has to do to win this election is to, whenever the GOP announces something, go out on a podium in front of the Associated Press and state "I do not agree with that." I'm starting to believe that might really be the case.

The only opinion that would shock me would be those wanting both dead over having an abortion, but then again I want to strangle most deontologists who do everything on their arbitrary moral principle.

Trust me, there are people like that. It's what God wants, after all.

[kaijyuu]

Yeah, I know there are. These are the same people who don't consider "steal a loaf of bread to feed starving family" to be an acceptable choice, since stealing = bad.


Having no regard for circumstance is one of the things I'd personally classify as "evil."

[palsch]

Steve King joining the party.

Mix this with some of the comments around the Assange case and it really is say something stupid about rape week in the political world.

The only opinion that would shock me would be those wanting both dead over having an abortion, but then again I want to strangle most deontologists who do everything on their arbitrary moral principle.

First case to come to mind. But other than personal experience from online abortion debates I can't really say how many people would support such action in the USA.

[Jervill]

Here's a PPP poll of the Missouri senate race: Here.

Akin-R: 44
McCaskill-D: 43 (Incumbent)

Basically, what PPP finds is that it is unchanged from their May poll (a 45-44 lead for Akin); of course, as with all single polls take it with a grain of salt and never read to much into one poll.  But still, a Republican could eat a kitten on live television and still get 35% of the vote.

[lemon10]

Steve King joining the party.

For a second there I thought Steven King (the famous horror writer), and was all sad. But I guess its just some random politician, so I am happier again (although the fact that he represents so many people in the house makes me a bit sad again).

[RedKing]

Here's a PPP poll of the Missouri senate race: Here.

Akin-R: 44
McCaskill-D: 43 (Incumbent)

Basically, what PPP finds is that it is unchanged from their May poll (a 45-44 lead for Akin); of course, as with all single polls take it with a grain of salt and never read to much into one poll.  But still, a Republican could eat a kitten on live television and still get 35% of the vote.

Oh, I wouldn't even look at the polls this close to the event. Takes at least 3 days for stuff like this to really filter through the electorate.

[mainiac]

Recent story on NPR indicated that the Republican party is planning to unveil in Tampa, as one of their official platform planks, a call for a constitutional ban against abortion with no exemptions.

This has been part of their party platform since 1976

[kaijyuu]

Could be that they're intentionally overshooting, so they can claim "compromise" if they get what they want in the first place.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Could be that they're intentionally overshooting, so they can claim "compromise" if they get what they want in the first place.

"President Obama agrees to Absolute-Abortion Ban Compromise after failure of Eternal-Abortion Ban Amendment."

[mainiac]

Basically, what PPP finds is that it is unchanged from their May poll (a 45-44 lead for Akin); of course, as with all single polls take it with a grain of salt and never read to much into one poll.  But still, a Republican could eat a kitten on live television and still get 35% of the vote.

May was a long time ago, before the primary wrapped up.  Since the primary, Akin was leading by a lot more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/senate/mo/missouri_senate_akin_vs_mccaskill-2079.html#polls

So he's actually lost a pretty big chunk of ground, about 5 points.  I would expect that he will continue to lose grounds for a few more days and actually be running behind, albeit slightly, by the time this is done sinking in.