By Dave Andrusko

Tara Culp-Ressler
Talk about a clash of cultures. There I was Sunday afternoon, waiting in my car for my son to arrive from work, listening with rapt attention to coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to Philadelphia on the radio.
Out of curiosity I switched channels to see what National Public Radio was doing. As it happens (at least on WAMU, our local Washington, DC affiliate), it was broadcasting “Interfaith Voices.“
Interfaith Voices humbly bills itself as “the nation’s leading religion news magazine on Public Radio,” which is kind of being the deepest well in the Sahara Desert. Not a lot to brag about.
I missed the first few minutes but Host Maureen Fiedler evidently had someone on from Vox, a relatively new liberal, pro-abortion outlet whose opinions run the gamut from a to b.
The Vox’s representative’s point was that finally–FINALLY–somebody (namely Vox) had conducted a poll on abortion that moved beyond the usual, usual. This is always code for frontloaded the questions in such as manner that pro-life responses are dismissed as, at best, dabbed inconsistent, or. at worse, running over in hypocrisy.
Fiedler made one feeble attempt to point out that the poll framed both the questions and the range of possible responses in such a way that it guaranteed it would come up with the responses Vox wanted.
Her response was that all they did was give respondents truthful options. In other words, if pro-life laws required that women contemplating abortion be told there can be emotional, physical, or psychological ramifications, women were not being told the truth. So, respondents get asked, in effect, if women are being lied to, how does that make you feel? Pro-choice.
Or if a woman has made up her mind to abort–the implication being there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to dissuade her–should you throw her to the wolves (I exaggerate, but only slightly)? If you don’t say yes to that, you are really ‘pro-choice.’ More about that below.
We talked about this in an earlier post a few months ago. What the Vox poll indulged in is called push-polling. Here’s the background.
In partnership with Vox, Tresa Undem “recently conducted an detailed poll on the subject that tells a quite different story than the one you typically see reflected in the headlines,” according to reporter Tara Culp-Ressler. And the reasons the results of the poll were different were because it allowed “room for the personal dimension of attitudes toward abortion access.”
Culp-Ressler’s celebration of the poll took the form of a long, long, detailed piece. Let me touch on just a few of her major points.
The initial gambit is to convince readers that viewpoints on abortion –contrary to conventional wisdom– have not been “closely divided” or “stable” for decades. She uses a 2013 quote from Daniel Cox, the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, to symbolize that (false) consensus: “The trend lines look about as flat as they can be.”
We’re told the “disservice to our understanding of public opinion” is in the questions major pollsters ask: “whether their [the public’s] beliefs align with one of the following four categories: Abortion should be legal in all cases; abortion should be legal in most cases; abortion should be illegal in most cases; or abortion should be illegal in all cases.”
Ms. Culp-Ressler’s adroitly avoid Gallup’s polling, which is the gold standard. The Vox poll’s four-questions miss the more nuanced questions Gallup asks.
Gallup ask respondents who say “abortion should be legal under certain circumstances” whether that meant legal in most circumstances or in only a few circumstances. “The responses break nearly 3-1 in favor of the more restrictive policy,” according to Gallup’s Lydia Saad.
Thanks to Gallup asking more precise follow-up questions, we know that a total of 58% of the American public believes that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances (20%) or legal in only a few circumstances (38%).
But Culp-Ressler/Undem/Vox would instantly respond, “Andrusko, you’re missing the whole point.” Traditional polls are (in Undem’s words) “a ‘blunt object’ rather than a sophisticated measurement of people’s real beliefs.”
Of course “a sophisticated measurement of people’s real beliefs” is nothing of the sort. It is using focus groups to figure out what combination of language, graphics, and buzz words will convince people that when a state passes a number of pro-life measures, this is not a reflection of the state’s views but actions that will lead members of the focus group to respond “B.S.,” “ridiculous,” “tragic,” “ashamed of our country,” “offensive,” “crazy,” and “disturbing.”
One way to shift the way people respond is to ask a “series of questions” about what they believe “a woman’s abortion experience should look like.” That is, to quote Culp-Ressler,
If a woman wanted to have an abortion, would they want her experience to be “comfortable,” “supportive,” “without pressure,” “non-judgmental,” “affordable,” “informed by medically-accurate information,” or “without added burdens”?
So, “concede” that a woman is going to have an abortion and…well, actually, we don’t. We don’t agree that over a million unborn children should be crushed, pulverized, poisoned, or suctioned out each and every year. And we also don’t believe taxpayers should pay for their abortions–and neither does the wider public.
We do agree women contemplating abortions should be given medically-accurate information. Planned Parenthood tells them essentially nothing about the development of their unborn child (that would be to “add burdens”) and dismisses all the research pointing to abortion’s negative aftermath as not only inaccurate but “junk science.”
We also agree we should be supportive–but supportive of her when she is looking for help. The only “assistance” Planned Parenthood offers is the fastest way to abort her unborn child.
And as for pressure, in a crisis pregnancy situation, who is most often putting pressure on the woman? Not us. It’s her boyfriend or husband or family or friends. We are often the lone voice advocating for both mother and unborn child.
Last point, which is an amplification of an earlier point. Culp-Ressler/Undem/Vox argue the public doesn’t know the real status of abortion in the U.S.–and by that they mean passage of many protective laws. As noted above, they believe that if they put together just the right package, people will be indignant.
Strange as it sounds, we would agree with them that the public doesn’t know the “reality” of abortion. They don’t know that
· Abortion is essential legal throughout pregnancy
· There have been over 57 million abortions since 1973
· In many states minor girls can have an abortion without their parents’ knowledge
· By 20 weeks unborn child can feel pain, which is unimaginably horrific when a child is aborted
· The way many unborn children are killed is that they bleed to death–after their arms and legs have been torn off.
And this is to name just a few of the many “realities” about abortion most people don’t know.
Referring to Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, and Undem, Culp-Ressler concludes
They’re hoping that more accurate polling on the issue of abortion will disabuse Americans of the notion that the issue is static, and move us toward a more nuanced conversation that better reflects how people are actually grappling with questions related to abortion in their everyday lives.
Assuming the truth is given equal time, I couldn’t agree more.