Harris Poll Reveals a VERY Pro-Choice America

The article below was posted on March 24, 1996, by Dr. Bruce Forest, to the following Usenet Newsgroups: talk.abortion, alt.religion.christian, alt.feminism, and alt.abortion.inequity. Even though other significant polls have been done since, this remains one of the most fascinating and revealing ones done on the topic of abortion. With that in mind, we now get to revisit those findings with this re-posting of Bruce's report and analysis.

(Bruce hasn't posted to the abortion groups for a long time, now, so I have no idea whether or not any of his own e-mail addresses, which he provided in his sign-off, below, are still valid.)

"Harris Poll on Abortion Rights... Prolifers have Lost the War"
by Dr. Bruce Forest

Here is the latest Harris data on abortion and abortion rights.
Design and Analysis by Louis Harris Conducted by Peter Harris Research Group, Inc., New York, N.Y.

The Results... (methodology below) --

The issue of a woman having the right to choose whether or not to have an abortion with the advice of her doctor is as clear-cut and decisive an issue as any in America in the mid-1990s. Up until 1985, the division on this issue was close nationwide. But, after the Webster decision, the balance shifted from a close 48% to 46% in favor to a pro-choice majority that climbed to the mid-50 percent range and then into the 60 percent range in the 1990s.

In this survey, on the basic right of a woman to choose to have an abortion, with the advice of her physician, the division nationwide is 71% to 24% in favor of choice. By the same token, an even more decisive 74% to 20% opposes a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. There is little doubt that the margins favoring abortion have been heightened by public outrage over the recent murders at abortion clinics, condemned by 94% of the public. Three in every four people favor the Justice Department sending in marshals to take action to protect abortion clinics from attack.

Abortion has become a major, front and center issue with women in America. And it is an active issue in elections. In 1992, for example, the actions of the Republican Platform Committee in Houston on the choice issue triggered a defection from President Bush of white suburban women in key big northern states from which he never recovered. Over 1 in 6 voters -- 17% of the electorate -- say they are certain they would shift their vote away from a candidate who took a position opposite their own on the right to choose. That 17% comes down 71% to 29% on the side of those who are Pro-Choice. This means that 12% of the vote nationally could switch against an anti-abortion candidate, while only 5% would switch against a Pro-Choice candidate. This represents a potential swing of 7 full points in the standing in a presidential race, meaning a 50-50 contest could be turned into a 57% to 43% landslide for a Pro-Choice candidate on that issue alone.

The vast majority of these potential switchers are women, 60% of the total.

The Poll methodology ---

In all, a cross-section of 1364 adults was interviewed nationally and a cross-section of 800 adults was interviewed in California. However, in order to have special breakdowns of key groups of women, it was decided that the national sample would consist of 955 women and 409 men. In the final results, men were weighted up to 48% of the national sample. In California, the unweighted sample consisted of 443 women and 357 men, but this sample was weighted 50% men and 50% women, according to correct census estimates on gender in the California adult population. A copy of the complete question- naires used, along with annotated overall results for each question are included in the back of this report. The national questionnaire contained questions on all of the subjects in the survey. The California survey included only the questions dealing with affirmative action, abortion, and political behavior, along with full demographics. Inquiries about special breakdowns of the results can be obtained from the office of Peter Harris Research Group, Inc. in New York at (212)-427-8072.

The sampling, field work, computer tabulations, charts and tables, and report preparation were contracted with the New York research firm of Peter Harris Research Group. All women were interviewed by female interviewers and all men by male interviewers, in order not to introduce cross-gender bias. Interviewing was conducted by telephone using a computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system operated by MKTG, Inc. of East Islip, N.Y. Louis Harris has served as an independent consultant and analyst on the study. Mr. Harris has had long experience in surveying racial and gender issues, including affirmative action. He wrote the questionnaires and the analysis of this report. He must bear the responsibility for the content, wording, and analytic portions. This study follows the practice of releasing the results of every question asked and the wording used in each question, as well as the question sequence. This is in the best practice of the field of public opinion research. Field work on the study was conducted from March 16 to April 3, 1995.

I think we have little worry about the prolifers [Anti-Choicers] having a hope in hell of restricting abortion.

-- Bruce Forest...
bforest@futuris.net
bforest@interramp.com
bforest@bliss.demon.co.uk
104165.2044@compuserve.com
droopus@aol.com

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My Comment on December 29, 2007

The chances are good that if that same Harris Poll were taken again today, the results probably would be very much the same. Little or nothing has happened since 1995 to make Americans more hateful. In fact, if anything, we should be more egalitarian than ever, having just gone through seven long years of a highly-bigoted Bush Administration, and seeing the repulsiveness of hatefulness, first-hand.

That said, though, I wish I could share, today, the optimism that Bruce Forest held 12 years ago about the future of the right of all girls and women to access the hugely-important and -beneficial remedy of abortion. He wrote his comments before GW Bush poisoned the U.S. Supreme Court against personal liberties by appointing two young repressive, RRR-Cult-oriented justices to it... for life! Prior to those appointments, the Court had had an egalitarian majority for 80 years. But often only by a thread. Many of its most important freedom-defending decisions were 5-4 cliffhangers. From now on, we can expect only hatefulness from the High Court on social issues. Perhaps for as long as any reading this may live. It is a radically-different Court now. A Court the likes of which almost NO one alive today has ever seen at work.

For example -- even though nothing could possibly be more harmless than same-sex marriage, we can count on the Court's coming down against it, first chance it gets, if it continues in its current composition. It'll be the diametric opposite of what we could have expected from the former Court. Instead of benevolently bestowing Emancipation, it'll be wreaking mindless and hateful Repression.

On the abortion front, the greatest danger is to the greatest act of Emancipation since Lincoln freed the slaves -- Roe vs. Wade. The Court could reverse that in a heartbeat at any time, and hurl America spinning and reeling back into the Dark Ages of FORCED gestation.

At this point, we have just ONE chance remaining, and even it is a tenuous one, for the damage done by Bush may already be irreversible. We must elect a Democrat to the Presidency in 2008, and hope and pray that he'll have the chance to re-set the Court, with new appointments, to its former egalitarian status. If another Republican President gets the chance to make more appointments, it'll be all over for sure.

If that happens, it'll be time for us to dust off our copies of George Orwell's 1984, and refresh ourselves on the society to come.