O M Fing G

[Thurnez Isa]

http://iranianredneck.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/the-war-against-women-continued/

The religious right really just wants to shame women to try to justify their own primitive family arrangements, and I wondered if this emerging  legislation trend is evident in public opinion. And Low. Verily. Even. Overall  opposition to abortion declines across the four decades of the NORC General Social Survey (our only scientific study with comparable high quality data across four decades) —in the 1970s the "pure choice" perspective—believing a woman should be able to get an abortion "for any reason" was opposed by 65% of respondents, and this fell to 62% in the 1980s and 56% in the 1990s, but increased to 59% in the 2000s. Still, it's a 6% decrease in opposition over the four decades. In contrast, the GSS question asking whether or not respondents agreed that abortion should be legal if the pregnancy was caused by rape shows a quite different trend.  In the 1970s, about 17% wanted to force rape victims to have a baby, and about the same held in the 1980s (at 18%). The desire to make rape victims suffer fell in the 1990s, to only 16% (isn't that great!)—however in the 2000s it has rebounded. Over 21% of Americans, more than one in five, believes that abortion should be illegal even when a pregnancy is caused by rape. Opposition to legal abortion in the case of rape has actually increased. Wow. And, those fuckers are homeschooling their six kids....

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Rape abortion came up in CCD when I went. Mainly because there were a lot of asshats who just wanted to make things difficult for the teacher, rather than asking thought-provoking questions (the snickers gave the motive away). But, one asshat asked about that particular conundrum. The teacher, a woman mind you, responded that it would be wrong because the rape obviously was part of God's plan if it resulted in pregnancy.

I had already given up on Catholicism at that point, that just kinda reinforced my position. This would have been around 1997.

[*GrumpButt*]

Rape abortion came up in CCD when I went. Mainly because there were a lot of asshats who just wanted to make things difficult for the teacher, rather than asking thought-provoking questions (the snickers gave the motive away). But, one asshat asked about that particular conundrum. The teacher, a woman mind you, responded that it would be wrong because the rape obviously was part of God's plan if it resulted in pregnancy.

I had already given up on Catholicism at that point, that just kinda reinforced my position. This would have been around 1997.

Wow... Just......

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Rape abortion came up in CCD when I went. Mainly because there were a lot of asshats who just wanted to make things difficult for the teacher, rather than asking thought-provoking questions (the snickers gave the motive away). But, one asshat asked about that particular conundrum. The teacher, a woman mind you, responded that it would be wrong because the rape obviously was part of God's plan if it resulted in pregnancy.

I had already given up on Catholicism at that point, that just kinda reinforced my position. This would have been around 1997.

Wow... Just......

That was similar to my reaction to it too.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

I'd have to say the apparent increase in pro-rape-suffering opinion isn't just because more people oppose abortion in the case of rape, but also because of a hardening of the anti-abortion stance in general. It looks like people who oppose abortion now are more likely to oppose it regardless of the situation, than when the surveys were first taken, when people who opposed abortion in general were more likely to make exceptions than they are now.

So this is evidence of extremism and polarization, not evidence of a universal backward trend on the issue - those who oppose abortion are not necessarily more numerous now than they were then, but they are more fervently opposed to abortion than they were. This isn't surprising, considering that the chief source of anti-abortion rhetoric is the Religious Right, where everything is black and white, and a sin is a sin no matter why it's committed (unless it's murder during war, or greed during capitalism, etc.) There is no moderating voice in the community responsible for anti-abortion sentiments, so those who listen aren't going to be moderate.

[Thurnez Isa]

I believe that is what the author was hinting to.