Official political stances on abortion are absolutely Manichean, however, with the Republican Party and most of its leading figures stressing that life begins at conception, a belief that would outlaw virtually all abortions except those necessary to protect the health of the mother. The Democratic Party platform – and most of its highest-profile members, including President Barack Obama – “strongly and unequivocally supports” abortion at any time and for any reason during a pregnancy.
Most Americans reject such categorical, extreme views and instead offer conditional support for abortion depending on when it’s performed. Gallup found that while 61 percent of Americans think abortion for should mostly be legal in the first three months of pregnancy and 27 percent felt it should be legal in the second trimester, just 14 percent agreed it should be allowed on demand in the final three months…
In Culture War?: The Myth of a Polarized America, the political scientist Morris P. Fiorina documents how, contrary to the way we talk about many social issues, there is broad agreement over topics such as immigration, gay marriage, the environment, tolerance, and abortion. Forget what you think you know about red and blue states, he counsels. When you look at what most people believe, America is mostly purple. He also helps to explain how political discourse over these same issues is typically divorced from mainstream opinion. Part of the reason, says Fiorina, is that the operatives who control political parties and much of our media discussions are from the extreme edges of virtually any given topic. The result is a major disconnect between what most people think about various topics and what most politicians and media commenters espouse. No topic offers up a better example of that dynamic than abortion.
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