80 Percent Of Americans Support Limiting Abortion To The First Trimester
The Federalist - Friday October 7, 2016
by Jeanne Mancini
The time is ripe for pro-life policy makers to move into offense mode on issues related to life and abortion. Although it may not be widely reported, they have the majority of Americans behind them. The numbers actually aren’t even close.
Past labels and polarizing culture-war rhetoric remains a steady and definitive 80 percent majority of Americans who believe abortions should at least be limited to the first trimester. This latest number comes from a July 2016 poll conducted by Marist, the polling agency used by the Wall Street Journal, McLatchy Corporation, and NBC News. The Marist poll also revealed that six out of ten self-identified pro-choice Americans believe abortion should be limited to the first three months of pregnancy.
With such an overwhelming majority of Americans favoring strong restrictions on abortion, it’s obvious current U.S. law does not reflect the hearts and minds of its own citizenship here. If current policies are already out of touch with mainstream America, we need to pay attention to the fact that one of the nation’s two major political parties is pushing an agenda that would only move this divergence more to the extreme. Yet many Americans remain woefully unaware of what they are truly voting for this fall.
Democrats Are Wildly Out of Touch
Most Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton, are advocating for a platform and policies that are far out of touch with mainstream America. Shockingly, they believe in legal abortion up until the time of birth, among other extreme positions. This is also the stance of the Democratic platform, which would send taxpayer dollars to pay for most abortions by repealing the Hyde Amendment.
Not all Democrats have embraced this extreme. True leaders such as Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois and Sen. Joe Manchin from West Virginia, alongside Sen Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, continue to stand strong against these radical policies. They should be applauded and further encourage other pro-life Democrats to speak up about this issue.
But despite the convictions of pro-life candidates and lawmakers representing the majority of American’s opinion on abortion on the campaign trail this fall, the Democratic candidate for president has only pushed harder against the mainstream and doubled down on an agenda that most Americans would never vote for themselves.
One Is Too Many
In June, the Supreme Court struck down common-sense abortion clinic health regulations. In response, Hillary Clinton called the court’s decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt “a victory for women across America.” But again, this view did not represent that of most Americans. The Marist poll also found that Americans strongly disagree with that Supreme Court decision, as 78 percent believe abortion clinics should meet the same standards as other surgery centers, and 70 percent of Americans want doctors who perform abortions to be required to have hospital admitting privileges.
To be clear, any abortion, at any time during a pregnancy, is one too many. We work tirelessly for the day when all Americans understand that no well-informed woman would ever want to choose abortion. Some say culture is upstream of policy; frankly, our nation’s abortion policies are neither upstream nor downstream. They are just out of touch—hopelessly adrift from the morality and will of the American people.
Last month, March for Life Action released a commercial making the case to the American people that we should not be afraid to tackle this winning issue, to move on the offensive and embrace what have now become mainstream pro-life policies. We are indeed winning the hearts and minds of Americans. To anyone out there who has been afraid to speak the truth on these winning issues, I invite you to join the consensus.
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