There's a lot of chatter today about the new Gallup poll showing that the number of Americans who identify as pro-choice is down to an almost all-time low of 41 percent.
You will no doubt hear the anti-woman extremists cite this as evidence that they're winning the war on women's reproductive rights and have persuaded the majority of Americans to oppose abortion.
But the number of Americans who identify as pro-choice isn't the number that matters. This is:
Only 20 percent of Americans think abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Which means the overwhelming majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or some circumstances. Even among the 51 percent who consider abortion "morally wrong," many of those same people still don't think abortion should be completely outlawed. Those numbers should be identical. Someone who identifies as "pro-life" supposedly thinks abortion is immoral and should be illegal in all circumstances. But that's not the case, because even those supposedly "pro-life" Americans don't really want to see themselves'or their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers'lose their reproductive rights. Regardless of their rhetoric, at the end of the day, they don't really want to go back to the days of back alley coat hanger abortions. They may be outside women's health clinics, terrorizing doctors and patients, screaming about murder and the unborn and the sanctity of life, but even those most virulent extremists seek safe, legal abortions for themselves and their families, and they're awful glad that clinic is there for them in their time of need.
That doesn't make them "pro-life." That makes them hypocrites.
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