WHAT?  YOU MEAN MANY AMERICANS DON'T AGREE WITH THE ELITES?  WHO ARE THESE ILLITERATE PEOPLE? – AT 9:15 A.M. ET:   From The Wall Street Journal:

During the health-care summit earlier this year, Vice President Joe Biden was roundly mocked for saying, "I don't know what the American people think." He was, however, showing a refreshing modesty. Especially when compared with those who believe the American people don't know what they think—or cannot possibly mean what they say when they tell us what they do think.

Gallup provoked some of this reaction when it released new data early last month on American attitudes toward abortion. Asked to rate various behaviors and social policies (e.g., embryonic stem-cell research, adultery, the death penalty) as either "morally wrong" or "morally acceptable," 50% called abortion wrong, as against only 38% who said it was acceptable. Even more contentious was the finding, for the second year in a row, that slightly more Americans consider themselves "pro-life" than "pro-choice" (47% to 45%).

What's Nancy Pelosi to do?

And yet, it is also true that most Americans want abortion kept legal, at least under certain circumstances.

The alleged contradiction between the moral and legal is often cited as evidence that Americans are fundamentally confused on abortion. But maybe Americans are not quite as confused as some think. Surely it does not violate logic for Americans to regard abortion as an evil, while also regarding it, in certain circumstances, as a necessary evil, or the lesser of two evils.

Ah, those Americans.  You mean those flyover people can actually think matters through?  What will this do to all those Ivy League degrees?

Some object to the term pro-life on the grounds that it gives the anti-abortion movement an unfair advantage. Accordingly, a number of news organizations no longer use pro-life or pro-choice, the latest being National Public Radio. The thought here is that the word pro-life is fooling people.

National Public Radio would worry that Americans have doubts about abortion.  That's their thing.

Now, if this were 1973, that might be an argument. But isn't it just a wee condescending to suggest, after more than a generation of contentious moral and political debate, that the American people really haven't figured out what pro-life and pro-choice mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Overall, Gallup's findings about Americans and abortion reflect less a political prescription than a sensibility. Apart from talk radio or the religious media, however, it's a sensibility almost entirely lacking in our news and entertainment world. So the next time you watch the pro-life community dismissed as a fringe element, ask yourself: Who's really out of touch with the American people here?

COMMENT:  Great piece, well worth reading.  And I love the last paragraph.  Having been in the news and entertainment worlds, I can attest to the accuracy of what's being said.  Never before have those planets been as far removed from the American people as they are today.

June 1, 2010     Permalink