Posted on 09/25/2004 7:43:07 PM PDT by Lorianne
Imagine you're the head of a women's group that backs abortion. In your quest to elect candidates who agree with your position, you're likely to talk up the importance of the issue to your membership and how they are excited to vote for like-minded candidates.
Yet, the political director of a nationally renown pro-abortion organization told the Christian Science Monitor newspaper that abortion is not an issue that drive women voters -- nor is it their top priority.
Karen White of Emily's List, a political organization that backs pro-abortion candidates, says abortion "is not an issue where a woman wakes up every morning and says, 'I am going to look up what my candidate thinks on abortion.'"
"Now, while it may be an important issue, and she may have a very strong opinion about it, [it] is not what is driving her to vote," White admitted.
In fact, White told the Monitor newspaper that the top issue for women is the war in Iraq and the number one issue for women swing voters is health care.
Perhaps White is acknowledging a June 2003 poll conducted by the Center for the Advancement of Women, which also backs abortion.
The survey found that 51% took a pro-life position opposing most or all abortions while only thirty percent said it should be generally available.
The poll also found that keeping abortion legal was the next to last most important priority for women. Fewer than half (41%) cite preserving abortion as a priority -- down from 49 percent in 2001.
In comparison, 92% list domestic violence and assault as a primary concern. A close second (90%) is equal pay for equal work. Also of greater importance to women is the ability to take time off to care for family (74%), reducing drug & alcohol addiction (72%) and increasing women's study of math, science, and technology (66%).
Jennifer Bingham of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group that works to elect pro-life women to public office, tells LifeNews.com the media has painted a false impression that a majority of women support abortion.
"Poll after poll is showing that more and more American women are classifying themselves as pro-life," Bingham said. "After 30 years of the message that 'choice' means a women's right to choose an abortion -- women are finally expressing choice as the right to have a child."
Meanwhile, an October 2003 poll conducted by Emily's List found that President Bush does just as well with women voters as with, at the time, an unnamed Democratic presidential candidate.
Among women, 42 percent said they would likely support the Democratic nominee while 39 percent said they would back President Bush.
In 1996, Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole by 16 percent among women voters. Bush cut the so-called "gender gap" to 11 in 2000.
The abortion issue drives MY vote. I vote prolife.
it has been millions of years of evolution and we are hunters and gatherers...... the women are concerned about security during the time of war..... it is that simple... can our tribe survive and can i and my children....
they worry about home..... security... children.... other families... then food shelter.... basics.....
This is shocking to liberals!!!
While radical feminists are the exception, I always wondered how many women voted for a candidate because some day they might want to kill their child. I just don't think taht they constitute a large population.
The most ardently pro-life people I know are women. It doesn't surprise me that 51% of women would vote to ban most or all abortions. The other thing that the GOP should realize that many socially conservative women are motivated to vote and be politically active ONLY because of their social concerns. Their husbands might still be motivated to vote GOP on the basis of taxes, regulation, and military spending, but many women connect most deeply on the social issues.
Another reason why, to win elections, a Republican candidate needs to appeal to every part of the conservative coalition: needs to be tax-cutting, smaller government, socially conservative, strong on national defense, pro-2nd amendment, etc...
It isn't that simple I think.
I think many many women say they are anti-abortion, but they quietly support the status quo of abortion on demand.
Whether it's a fear that their daughter gets pregnant, or an otherwise chaste housewife finds herself in a bit of a predicament after a lingering visit by an anonymous UPS guy, I think many women say one thing to pollsters on the issue, but quietly like the 'easy out' to what they consider an inconvenient (or inexplicable) pregnancy.
I think it's terrible, but I think its true.
"How amazing that most women aren't libertine party sluts who need frequent abortions..."
No wonder my approach hasn't been working!
"Funny" how someone can fail to see that some people would find that the convenience killing an unborn child, the product of a women's womb, would be repulsive and wrong.
Women who have abortions should be denied Social Security benefits. If they choose to reduce the work force that would support them in their "old age" then they should forgo the payments. Why should a woman that had children share her benefits with the "baby killers"?
The "coat hanger" symbol now means nothing to the women that rats are trying to scare into voting rat. Women in the "abortion age" just don't understand what the rats are babbling about.
The Selfish Generation which drives all policy on the Left is advancing out of the child-bearing years. As soon as the Boomers hit menopause, it is not at all surprising that they lose interest in the whole issue of abortion. Breast Cancer will be a much hotter topic in the next few years, along with government mandated HRT pumped into the water supply.
I am pro-choice not pro-abortion. I think women are smart enough to decide how to handle their pregnancies. I also think it's unfair of you to characterize every woman who seeks abortion as a "libertine party slut" who aborts at the drop of the hat. Sometimes women are raped, sometimes birth control fails, and sometimes a girl is ignorant and gets pregnant at 13. Better birth control, the morning after pill, getting men to take more responsibility for birth control, and offering a pregnant woman some kindness and support so she won't abort could go a long way. The alternative, to outlaw abortion will only kill women. Unfortunately abortion has been around for a long time; it was made illegal and women died. Plus, do we really want to start policing pregnant women? How is that consistent with a free society? Only if women were being forced by the state to abort, like in China, could I be for outlawing abortion. But every woman has the freedom to not have abortion or to have one. FREEDOM, CHOICE being the operative words here. P.S. I am no liberal.
Not outlawing it has killed 42 million kids so far.
Do you honestly believe that if a holocaust of children was going on in this country that everyone, libs, conservatives, mods, whomever, and especially women, wouldn't say it's murder and rise up to do something about it? I don't happen to believe that fetuses are children. They are on their way to being children and live as children in the minds of happily expectant parents, but have no yet achieved personhood. Lot's of people believe as I do, people of many faiths believe as I do. But are you ready to start policing pregnant women in a free society? Are you ready to tell me here and now that a fetus is more important than the woman on whom it depends for life? Are you ready to tell me that you don't care if women die if abortion is outlawed? That they're all filthy sluts that deserve to die because of their indiscretion, whether that indiscretion be rape, incest, or just having a body weakened by diabetes or heart disease? Just let me know.
You've had an abortion.
No, I haven't.
I have two lovely daughters, age 22 and 21 (we fell for the line that breast-feeding is contraceptive). The oldest is married now - praise God - but the younger is single and still in college. It is unimaginable that her parents would ever advise her to abort. She would never consider it. As a physician, I've seen way too many post-abortion trauma disorder cases to think that there is anything benign about abortion. It's just evil. And its destroyed far more than it was supposed to have preserved.
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