October 20, 2009 9:05 PM
Obama Nation: US becoming more pro-life
The Country's Emerging Shift on Abortion
New polling shows a growing antiabortion sentiment
By Dan Gilgoff
October 9, 2009The Susan B. Anthony List, the antiabortion movement's answer to the pro-abortion rights group EMILY's List, set an ambitious organizing goal at the beginning of this year: getting supporters to send 300,000 letters and E-mails to Congress on abortion-related issues. But the group quickly surpassed that benchmark, recently tracking the millionth piece of congressional correspondence sent by a Susan B. Anthony List backer in 2009. "We used to have to nag and nag our members to get their voices heard," says Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Northern Virginia-based group. "Now it's not a matter of nagging. We're seeing a tidal wave of activism."
Click here to find out more!Antiabortion groups decry the "radical pro-abortion agenda" of the new president and his ascendant party, but at the same time that Democratic rule has proved an organizing boon for the movement. And a new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that the country as a whole has shifted in a more antiabortion direction. While supporters of legal abortion outnumbered abortion rights opponents by 54 percent to 40 percent as recently as last year, the new survey finds that Americans are now evenly split on the issue. Most Democrats now say they'd like to reduce the number of abortions, while conservatives have grown even more intensely antiabortion. "This is a really unusual shift," says Gregory Smith, a senior Pew researcher who helped author the survey report, released last week. "I'm struck by the large number of groups that have moved on the issue: men and women, whites and Hispanics, those with college degrees and those with none. It's a broad movement."
And it presents a challenge for Obama and his party. The Pew survey suggests that the country is growing nervous that Democrats will overreach on abortion rights. The debate raging over abortion coverage in healthcare reform is an example of how the issue can threaten Obama's broader agenda. But the report also points to an opportunity for the White House to allay the fears of moderates and some abortion foes by delivering on his promise to find common ground on the issue. "Folks are worried about progressive political leaders sweeping the concerns of pro-life people under the rug," says Rachel Laser, who works on culture war issues for Third Way, a Democratic-aligned think tank. "It's essential that the Democrats capture their trust."
Read more at US News & World Report.
HT: April
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