In recent weeks, pollsters and pundits have been wrestling with a seeming contradiction at the heart of the country's abortion debate. On the one hand, the United States is a pro-choice nation, with consistent majorities of Americans voicing the belief for two decades that abortion should be legal in some or all cases. On the other, the United States is also witnessing the rapid proliferation of draconian curbs on reproductive rights that in many states could soon make abortion access a thing of the past.
As it turns out, that contradiction isn't much of a paradox after all. As a recent survey by the Pew Research Center revealed, views on abortion vary widely by religion and region of the country. For example, 75 percent of New Englanders believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases; only 20 percent are opposed. But in the South, opponents outnumber supporters by 52 to 40 percent. Still, with the passage of harsh anti-abortion laws in traditional (and trending) blue states including Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia, geographic and religious disparities don't sufficiently explain the seeming momentum of the anti-abortion movement. To fully comprehend the changing landscape, you need to understand both voters' intensity and when they actually go to the ballot box
As it has since the mid-1990's, the Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a steady advantage for pro-choice supporters, "with 55 percent saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 41 percent say it should be illegal in most or all cases." But that number obscures the huge gap in intensity between pro-choice and anti-abortion voters. A survey by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal found that only 26 percent of respondents described abortion as a high or very high priority for Congress and state legislatures, with 72 percent brushing the issue off a medium or low priority. NBC explained the yawning chasm in intensity between the two sides:
There is a striking divide when it comes to intensity. Among those who believe abortion legislation should be a high priority for state and federal lawmakers, a combined 70 percent say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.Writing in the Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg quantified the ferocity of social conservatives' anti-abortion views that make them such a force in off-year election and Republican primaries:And among those who think it should be a low priority, 65 percent say it should be legal either always or most of the time.
According to a Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation poll taken last year, 63 percent of Republicans believe abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. Among those who identify with the Tea Party movement, the number is 88 percent. These are the party's activists, the people who turn out for crucial primary elections--and, in many cases, mount primary challenges of their own. They will can't [sic] simply be ignored.To put it another way, anti-abortion voters simply care more about curtailing abortion rights than supporters do about preserving them. And in non-presidential election years, that difference in motivation can make all the difference.
