As someone who has done his small part in trying to educate the American public, I genuinely appreciate a good headline that captures 46 years of misunderstanding.
Recently Rasmussen Reports ran a story headlined,” FEW VOTERS UNDERSTAND ROE V WADE RULING; OR WHAT OVERTURNING IT WOULD MEAN.” While the brief story doesn’t directly address the first half of the headline, here are four important bullet points:
1. Thanks to incessantly misleading reporting, the public has little-to-no understanding of what Justice Blackmun and his six colleagues unleashed in 1973. A fair number don’t even know Roe (and Doe v. Bolton) were about abortion. Many to this day (thanks to the media) think Doe and Doe legalized abortion only through the first trimester. For all practically purposes, in fact, these decisions legalized abortion on demand throughout pregnancy!
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2. According to Rasmussen, “Thirty-one percent (31%) of voters incorrectly believe that abortion will be illegal if the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision is overturned.” It wouldn’t. What it would do is “allow each state to set their own rules concerning abortion.” However, barely a third (35%) knew the truth.
3. Later, Rasmussen breaks down how abortion influences voting [underlining is mine]:
Given a choice between one candidate who said abortion should be legal at any point during a pregnancy and a candidate who said abortion should not be allowed once a fetal heartbeat has been detected, 51% would vote for the candidate who opposed abortion once a heartbeat has been detected. Twenty-seven percent (27%) would support the candidate who believes abortion should be legal at any point during a pregnancy and 22% are not sure.
4. If you look deeper, you find a question—an important question—about how voters felt about abortion survivors: “If a live birth occurs during an abortion procedure, 69% of voters believe the doctors involved should be required to care for the child and make all reasonable efforts to keep it alive. Only 6% are opposed, 20% are not sure, and 4% preferred not to answer.”
“Only 6% are opposed.” Essentially 100% of Democrats are opposed, again illustrating how far out of touch they are with the American electorate.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
