Is there really this much pro-choice sentiment among Republican primary voters in South Carolina? You'd think that would be a very, very, very, very conservative group of people.
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Pro-Choice Carolina
19 Jan 2008 09:27 pm
Comments (27)
Also, isn't McCain in the criminalize-abortion camp? I guess the 29% "legal abortion"-ers who voted for him consider other issues more important.
You'd think that would be a very, very, very, very conservative group of people.
Well, if it's any consolation, a lot of the white people there are really really really racist. Really. Although recent revelations suggest that that might make them Liberal Fascists..
The plurality choice 'Mostly illegal' means 'illegal unless it's my daughter'.
As always, these folks are talking about abortions for "other people". If one of them, or their daughter was pregnant with a deformed fetus, they would be rushing to the nearest abortion provider - even if they had to fly to liberal NYC!
I guess the 29% "legal abortion"-ers who voted for him consider other issues more important.
They were interviewing a retired vet who voted for McCain because 'he'd get us out of Iraq'. If you look at the personality / issues polling results, it says a lot about McCain voters.
It's a curious mirror image of Romney: people project their own positions onto McCain, regardless of his voting record.
SC is weird, run by republicans, but has the whole republican shaky coalition in microcosm. In cities like charleston, columbia, or greenville, for example, the conservative christian types are seen as distasteful among the business types, and in most areas these elites make the decisions. They have for hundreds of years, and the exceptions, the ben tillmans and cole bleeses, are again viewed as times when the 'necks got too far out in front. In all, SC is a very, very conservative place, but not uniformly so in the way that makes the voters single-issue pro-lifers. John mccain IS very conservative.
whenever I visit pitchforkmedia.com, I think of ben tillman.
Well, despite the stereotypes, I'm willing to bet that most conservatives wouldn't want, for example, their daughter to be forced to give birth to a rapist's baby. So I don't find this data all that surprising.
I'm willing to bet that most conservatives wouldn't want, for example, their daughter to be forced to give birth to a black baby.
Fixed yer typo for SC purposes.
You can say you understand something about Virginia; it's a centering state.
But if the politics of Virginia go back not to the Civil War but to the execution of Charles I and the founding settlers what do you say about South Carolina?
At least they didn't fall for the black baby bit again.
As always, these folks are talking about abortions for "other people". If one of them, or their daughter was pregnant with a deformed fetus, they would be rushing to the nearest abortion provider - even if they had to fly to liberal NYC!
I used to date a girl in Chicago who worked at a Planned Parenthood clinic. She said that many of the women in the process before getting an abortion would go on and on about how wrong they felt abortion was. I'm talking, like, one out of every ten women who came in for the procedure or more.
What I find interesting is that Giuliani, the only openly (sorta) pro-choice candidate in the race, only managed to get one-fifth the votes of pro-choice Republicans than did Mike "God's Constitution" Huckabee. Think on that: are there really that many other issues out there that separate those two? Certainly not economics or Muslim-killing.
Boy, Rudy really is a loser. But this was exactly the outcome he wanted, I'm sure. And the media tells me that this outcome is great for him...
Personally, I would never encourage my girlfriend/wife/daughter/cousin/friend to have an abortion, under any circumstances other than if their life was in danger. I would very strongly implore them not to. If my wife/girlfriend ever had an abortion, except for extreme circumstances, I would consider that grounds for divorce/breakup. Please don't tell _me_ that I'm a fair-weather pro-lifer. (Not a conservative, btw.)
If you actually met pro-life folks, instead of just assuming, you'd find that more leniency on the margins then you might imagine. There are shades of gray for most. Thinking it's wrong and thinking it should be universally banned by the government, always, are not one in the same.
Just because the extremes color the coverage of the debate, it doesn't mean the define its entirety.
You might have forgotten that S.C. has an open primary, and presumably the independents and undeclareds who came out to vote for McCain are more liberal on abortion than the registered Republicans of South Carolina.
Relatedly, I read (I think it was on The Corner, where the discord and confusion grows with each passing day) that McCain lost registered Republicans by 1%, which bodes poorly for him in the upcoming races, which are mostly closed to independents.
In South Carolina, they don't terminate pregnancies. They nullify them.
Elliot Reed said all that needed to be said: these numbers are very anti-choice.
Maybe Matt thought it would be 93% baby-to-term, but that was really an (unintended) straw man Matt constructed in his own mind.
Two words: housing bubble.
The Carolinas have seen an awful lot of out-of-state people move into them in the past decade as they seek cheaper housing. It has changed their character considerably.
if the politics of Virginia go back not to the Civil War but to the execution of Charles I and the founding settlers
All our politics go back to Charles I--why, our current president thinks he rules by divine right!
Compare George Bush's claims about his powers as "commander-in-chief" with the position taken by Charles I on ship money:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_money
Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I had his Cromwell, and George Bush . . . should profit by their example [to paraphrase :)].
" Please don't tell _me_ that I'm a fair-weather pro-lifer."
Nah. You're just an ass.
There's plenty of room amongst "conservatives" for misogynists who don't venerate the fetus, who think abortion should mostly be legal, but who don't really care about abortion restrictions because they just mean that women get what they deserve. A goodly percentage of them will even effectively admit it.
It's very fun to make all sorts of assumptions about pro-life people, isn't it? My parents have been pro-life for decades, and when my sister discovered she was pregnant by a boyfriend she had broken up with, they did everything to support her in NOT terminating the pregnancy. The baby was given up for an open adoption.
I should also note that my parents took in a young black woman with an unplanned pregnancy to live with us for a few months when she couldn't afford a place to live.
I'm not saying there aren't hypocrites of all sorts out there, but do NOT paint all pro-lifers with the same brush.
Adams, please shut up. The reality based community has already decided what the truth is w/r/t anti-choicers: they don't personally practice what they preach. It is not necessary to actually meet anti-choicers or have any data to back it up such assertions. So please don't offer any evidence to the contrary.
Mark - I suppose you're right. They've also read all of our minds and determined that the REAL reason we want abortion to be illegal is because we're misogynists who want to control women, not because we, you know, don't like killing babies.
Also, we're all completely heartless and don't care about anyone once they're born.
Adam's right. I also find the completely speculative argument about how a pro-lifer would act with a pregnant daughter particularly off point. If I were down to my last penny, I might be awfully tempted to rob someone's house while armed with a gun. Does that mean it should be legal?
Someone's choice in pursuit of his or her own self-interest can't be the lone indicator of general morality. It's worth considering, but it hardly settles the issue.
Comments closed February 02, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
About 70% of them think abortion should mostly or always be illegal. Another 20% think abortion should be "mostly legal", which probably means they support partial-birth abortion bans or something. That sounds like a very, very, very, very conservative group to me.
Posted by Elliot Reed | January 19, 2008 9:38 PM