There has been a buzz this week about a new Gallup finding that, for the first time, most Americans call themselves "pro-life" rather than "pro-choice," 51% to 42%. Yet when we look at the underlying trends of when, if ever, they think abortion should be allowed, the long-term trend shows almost no change. About a quarter of Americans think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, and a quarter think it should be illegal under any circumstances. In the middle are the half that think abortion should be legal under some circumstances.
What has changed this year is that a couple of percent of centrists have decided that their position is better described as pro-life than pro-choice.
I think we should remember that this choice is about what the law should allow, not what is a good idea to do. There are many centrist positions that think the law should permit choices that are almost always a bad idea, just because of that "almost." If you had only two choices, would you call that pro-life, or pro-choice?
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Many behaviours allowed by our laws are legal and yet immoral.I think the majority of abortions fall into this category. It wouldn't matter if 100% of Americans were pro abortion the behaviour would be immoral just the same.
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