By Dave Andrusko
"Rock the Vote" bills itself as a non-partisan organization, one of whose tasks it is to "enhance the public debate, increase civic participation, and expand the community of fully-engaged citizens." A more accurate picture is of a thinly veiled pro-abortion front for Democrats.
Having said that, a survey conducted of first-time voters by Rock the Vote and Pace University's Pace Poll between July 8 and July 20 is a font of interesting information. [You can read the entire results by going to www.rockthevote.com/rtv_pacepoll.php.]
The data tell us a lot about people who registered since 2000. That includes insight into presidential preferences, party identification, the issues they care about most, how many identify themselves as "born-again or evangelical Christians," their sources of information, and why they decided to register.
What is most useful to us is their positions on abortion. The numbers are most encouraging.
Pace Poll researchers posed four different alternatives to the 662 new registrants and asked which "is closest to your own view." Intriguingly, unlike most surveys, the options were not rotated, which is typically done to be sure the responses are not influenced by the positioning of the question.
We read that 21% said they believe "abortions should be legal and generally available." Another 23% identified with the position that "regulation of abortion is necessary, although it should remain legal in many circumstances."
But a whopping 41% said "abortion should be legal only in the most extreme cases, such as to save the life of the mother, incest, or rape," while another 13% said "all abortions should be made illegal."
So, taken at face value, this tells us that 54% believe abortion should never be legal or legal only in "the most extreme cases." But in reality, the results are probably even better.
These two categories are very specific: never or life of woman/ rape/incest. Contrast that with the 23% who said that regulation of abortion is "necessary," with the provision that abortion "should remain legal in many circumstances" (emphasis added).
That could mean anything, but common sense would tell you that some of these respondents are much closer to the none/ "hard cases" position than to those who say abortion should be "legal and generally available." Even this latter formulation is considerably "softer" than pro-abortion language which poses the option of abortion being "always" available.
[An interesting but related aside is that more in-depth polling is demonstrating that one of the most revealing results comes when people are asked what they would say to those close to them who are contemplating an abortion.
["If a relative or close friend told you she was pregnant," respondents were asked in a 2002 poll conducted for the Buffalo News, "and wanted to get an abortion, which of the following statements best expresses your reaction?" More than two-thirds (67.4%) said either "tell her abortion is wrong" (32.7%) or advise against her decision (34.7%).]
Also, according to Duncan Currie, writing in the Weekly Standard, "Among first-time Latino voters, pro-lifers outnumber pro-choicers 61 percent to 34 percent; among blacks, the pro-life/pro-choice breakdown is 59 percent/42 percent. Self-described 'moderates' similarly tend to be more pro-life (52 percent) than pro-choice (45 percent)."
If that weren't intriguing enough, according to Currie, the survey also revealed, "Pro-life views also have surprising traction among new voters who identify themselves as John Kerry supporters."
Turns out that "A plurality (34 percent) of Kerry voters, not to mention pluralities of new independent voters (36 percent) and new undecided voters (35 percent), believe 'abortion should be legal only in the most extreme cases, such as to save the life of the mother, incest, or rape.'"
We've always said that on abortion Kerry was out of step with the American people. It appears he may well be out of step with many of his own supporters.