Why (Some of) You Changed Your Minds About Abortion

Earlier this week, I posted about the results of a recent poll by the Pew Forum. It found that public opinion about abortion had shifted several points since last year.

I allowed as how that makes no sense to me. Surely, whether I believe that abortion should be illegal has nothing to do with who sits in the Oval Office or controls Congress that year. The Pew folks asked their poll participants to tell them why they'd changed their minds, but got very few takers. So I asked you if you had shifted positions lately. And if so, to share the reasons. I even created a special e-mail address for people who didn't want to monkey with our comments system.

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More than 120 comments and e-mails later, I have some answers. But not many. By my generous count, exactly five people responded to the actual question. Most of the comments merely rehashed the same arguments about abortion that have been kicking around since at least Roe v. Wade.

A few of the other responses were at least interesting, and I'll share those, too. Two people asked a pretty good question: How do we know that people have actually changed their minds? After all, the pollsters don't call the same people year after year.

That goes to the heart of poll-taking. The assumption is that a properly drawn, representative sample is likely to tell us something about the opinions of the millions who didn't get the call. So a large enough shift in answers to the same question asked the previous year is supposed to indicate a shift in the general population.

That's the point of the error rate cited by scientific polls. It's usually presented as something like "plus or minus 3 percent." But what's left out is the front end of the entire statistical assumption, which runs something like "we have 95 percent confidence that this poll is accurate, plus or minus 3 percent." Which means that they figure the error will be larger than that just 5 percent of the time.

Maybe this poll was one of the unlucky unlikelies? It's possible. But this isn't the first time that public opinion about the legality of abortion shifted several percentage points in polls taken a year or so apart.

So let's assume that some folks really have changed their minds. Why is that?

I only got one answer that totally played by the rules -- someone who clearly stated that his or her opinion had shifted recently, along with some reasons:

"5-6 years ago I was pretty hard in favor of abortions, even to late-term abortions. Today I think a woman should have unlimited access to an abortion in the first five months of pregnancy, [conditional] abortions up to the seventh month, and after the seventh month abortions only when it critically threatens the life of the mother.

"I'd like to think that my change has been one of sophistication; basically coming to terms with the understanding that abortion isn't an absolute right and that once a woman has reached the final trimester she's essentially made her choice to have the baby. I'd probably sum it up as a slight compromise to my principles; a woman has a right to control her own reproduction but that right isn't limitless . . . just as the right to speech doesn't allow shouting fire in a theater.

"Ultimately tho I can't think of a single thing that's really changed my opinion. It's been much more gradual."

If I could give an award to this person, I'd do it. Thoughtful, responsive and civil. Brava!

Another responder didn't give a time frame, but made a point that was echoed by several others: "When I changed from pro-choice to pro-life: When I taped my firstborn's ultrasound to the fridge."

Here's another succinct and highly personal response without a time frame: "Had cancer, made a choice. Otherwise, my child would have been an orphan. What would you have done?"

Here's a long answer of the sort that leads me to think this person didn't shift position recently:

Top Ten Reasons I Changed on Abortion

10. I've found that many people so vocal about animal rights are strangely silent on unborn humans.
9. No one ever explains what happens to the fetuses after; sold for parts? or used in research? Trashed?
8. Stats say greater numbers of women who abort have breast cancer issues than those that don't.
7. Stats say only 1% of the procedures are for rape/incest; the other millions are for inconvenience.
6. Flushing away human life for being inconvenient reflects badly on an already self-centered, throw-away society.
5. The economy, stupid. From schoolbooks to housing, to stockings to the stock market, EVERYONE's prosperity depends on other people buying their products; without families reproducing, there is no market. Aborting a generation leaves a diminished customer base.
4. I would love to be a grandma myself someday.
3. It provides an easy out. Requiring a man or woman to face their parental responsibilities is sometimes the only way they will ever grow up and mature.
2. I truly don't believe God approves.
And ironically, the number 1 Top Ten Reason I am against it now is: I experienced abortion myself 25 years ago and regret it to this day. It was painful, traumatic, permanently severely damaged my organs, and I still miss that child that never was. Listening to "friends" instead of my own heart, resulted in something I wouldn't wish on a dog. But then that's just me. And you asked.

Here is another person who appears to have changed her mind a while ago:

I'm one of those people who changed my mind about abortion.

I used to think it was ok and it was a woman's choice what she can do with her own body, it was her decision. I have seen too many people use abortion as birth control, as a bargaining tool, as a political statement.

As for me, and my opinion only, I believe abortion is morally wrong and I regret the abortion I had as a teenager.

I killed a child, and for that I am deeply grieved.

Here is a bit of speculation from someone whose position has not changed about why others have:

I am surprised that you have not recognized the influence that Sarah Palin had on the abortion issue in the past year. Sarah Palin is a woman who chose life and belongs to a group called Feminists for Life.

Sarah Palin not only talks the talk of a feminist for life but also walks the walk. Her example has spoken to women in a way that you will most likely never understand. . . .

My 25 year old daughter and most of her friends are prolife. So it is possible that our young people are having an influence on their parents.

Sarah Palin changed peoples' minds? Really? I get no sense that her appeal has ever gone much beyond those who were already inclined to agree with her. And it's the young folks leading the way? Here's another bit of speculation that spins the age influence the other way:

When we become older, suddenly we find out "we act and speak and voice our opinion as our mom." It's me, I'm my own mom now and don't forget the famous quote "in your 20's, you [have] no heart if you're not a liberal, in your 40's you have no brain if you're not a conservative." I regret a lot of things I did when I was young and I still live everyday with the consequences. [Life] goes on, I move on, but I was a Miss "know it all" now I'm a Mrs. "learn it all." All I said "I wish I'd not done that." You know what I mean.

One more interesting guess:

Could it be the healthcare debate? Could it be that people don't want to pay for other people's choice to abort? I mean, they might think it's okay for you to have a choice but don't want to have to pay for your reproductive plans/birth control/ whatever you call it. I think that made more a difference than moral objections. $ always wins in America.

So that's what we got. As Spencer Tracy once said of Katharine Hepburn in "Pat and Mike" : "Not much meat on her, but what there is, is 'cherse.' "

Anybody else who wants to explain why you changed your position recently, the comments light is always on.


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