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Religion and Abortion: It
Matters if Abortion is Preached From the Pulpit Part Three of Three By Dave Andrusko
The headlines were (surprise, surprise) that people's religion had more of an impact ("a top influence") on their views of abortion than on, for example, the environment and immigration. Clearly the intent of the survey was not to measure the impact of preaching on the congregants' position on abortion, but we'll talk about our issue--abortion--anyway. Just so we're clear, it's not as though parishioners hadn't heard other issues preached from the pulpit. As many as 88% report hearing their pastors/priests talk about them. They just didn't move the dial. In an analysis titled, "Few Say Religion Shapes Immigration, Environment Views," we find * "On the issue of abortion, 26% overall say religion is the most important influence on their opinion, including 45% among abortion opponents." Among those whose views were "liberal" on abortion, only 9% cited religion. Digging a little deeper, we get more specifics. "Fully 45% of those who say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases cite religious beliefs as the top influence on their views, compared with just 9% of those who say abortion should be legal [in all or most cases]." * "Among religious groups, just over half of white evangelical Protestants (53%) say religion has the biggest influence on their views of abortion, while a third of black Protestants (33%), roughly a quarter of Catholics (23%) and 17% of white mainline Protestants say the same." * "[S]even-in-ten Catholics (70%) who attend church at least once a month report that their clergy speak out on the issue of abortion. Similarly, 65% of white evangelical Protestants and 55% of black Protestants who attend services at least once a month report that their clergy talk about abortion, while fewer mainline Protestants (39%) say this." Keep that in mind as we speculate on what the following means. · "Among those who attend religious services at least once a month and say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, two-thirds (66%) report having heard about the issue from their clergy. Among regular worship attenders who think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, fewer (50%) report having heard about this issue from their clergy. Half of those who say their clergy speak out on abortion cite religion as the most important influence on their views on abortion, compared with 29% of those who do not hear from their clergy about the issue." (Emphasis added.) Hmmm. Sounds to me like the more the regulars "who attend religious services" hear about abortion, the more pro-life they are. Okay, Pew probably didn't like those results, so how about which issues are "very important" for the November 2 mid-term elections? Well, as everyone would have anticipated--with the exception of terrorism--the top seven selections are all economic issues, beginning with the economy and including healthcare as number three. But (a) abortion is still very important to 43% of the 3,003 respondents; and (b) there is a difference between an issue being very important and whether someone's vote is dependent on a candidate's position on that issue. On abortion, single-issue pro-life voters vastly outnumber single-issue pro-abortion voters. One other result. Even though the categorization is not at all nuanced [the choices are do you believe abortion should be legal in all or most case; versus illegal in all or most cases], 59% of Republicans choose the latter as did 41% of Independents. If you break that out along faith lines, 63% of White Evangelicals believe abortion should be illegal in all/most cases as do 50% of Black Protestants and 52% of Hispanic Catholics. Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |
While
on more than a few occasions I've had my differences with the
way the Pew Research Center for People & the Press interprets
the results of its own surveys, their work almost always grab my
attention and make me consider their results. Last Friday Pew
released the results of its phone survey of 3,000+ Americans to
see if it could figure out how religion affects the respondents'
views on a number of prominent issues.