Tim Carney writes in Human Events Online: "pro-choice Republicans represented 9% of the incumbents running on Election Day, but 35% of the incumbents losing on Election Day." None of the thirteen incoming House Republicans embrace the "pro-choice" label. Carney further informs that Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America donated to the campaigns of five Republicans (including three incumbents), who all lost. Reliable GOP pro-abortion votes Joe Schwarz, Nancy Johnson, Charlie Bass, and Lincoln Chafee were among those who went down to defeat. The Republican caucus, as a result of all this, is more solidly pro-life. Democrats such as Pennsylvania's Bob Casey, North Carolina's Heath Shuler, and Ohio's Charlie Wilson are among the Hill's eight incoming pro-life Democrats. November 7 was an awful day for Republicans. It wasn't as bad a day for conservatives.

This line of thinking is total bull*hit. I'll tear it to shreds now.

Most Dems elected on Nov 7 were pro-choice. Shuler was an outlier.

The public as a whole is very pro-choice, with at least two thirds of Americans supporting abortion rights.

There is some truth that Republican elected officials are becoming more pro-life, but this is only the inevitable result of gerrymandering which has moved the competitive part of the election from the november general to the primary.

Anti-abortionists are powerful in Republican primaries, and it shows.

But if you really think people like Mitt Romney or Bob Corker are pro-life you're off your rocker.

"The public as a whole is very pro-choice, with at least two thirds of Americans supporting abortion rights." HeHe

It really all depends on what you mean by "abortion rights."

By far, the majority of Americans think that abortion is ok in certain circumstances and especially early on.

On the other hand, by far, the majority of Americans think that the current regime of "abortion rights" is too loose. Look at the numbers regrading the detail questions, and you will no longer say, simplistically, "The public as a whole is very pro-choice."

Aside: Why do leftists always talk in euphemisms? "Abortion rights." The fetus has no rights when it comes to abortion.

A majority of Americans think that partial birth abortion should be made illegal.

But they also think there should be exceptions for the life of the mother.

That is the closest the American people get to the pro-life position on abortion.

"Abortion rights" "the right to kill your fetus"

It doesn't matter what you call it, we all know what the euphmisims mean.

"It doesn't matter what you call it, we all know what the euphmisims mean."

Then why do you use euphemisms? Perhaps because to use the word "kill" implies there is something alive. And IF it's alive, we all know what it is, namely, of the human species. And to say that, well, makes your position either evil or untenable.

Regarding your numbers, you just seem to be wrong. From what I can tell, about 1/3 of Americans like it the way it is now, about 1/3 believe that abortion should be legal only for rare justice/medical reasons (rape, incest, mother's life...), and the other thrid fall between those by wanting more restrictions, e.g., by requiring perental consent, outlawing partial birth abortion, and waiting periods, etc etc. Now, depending on what you mean by prochoice and prolife, this could be 2/3 of americans who are prochoice, or 2/3 that are prolife.

Now I think this moderate position is a bunch of cowardly BS. A chunk of this middle third seems to think that abortion is murder, but that it should still be allowed rather often. (LA Times, June 2000, 57% say abortion is murder.) I think, if the fetus is an innocent and defenseless living animal of the human species, then we should not intentionally end its life, ever. But the fact that the 2/3 constituting the anti-status-quo-on-abortion are to my left doesn't mean they are "prochoice." They are certainly to the right of the Democratic party. In fact, it is the standard Republican position that matches the 2/3 here. The Democratic position ("abortion on demand"), which seems to be your position, is representative only of about 20-25%. Be honest, dude.

This abortion debate is just one more example of how religion ruins reason.

Why use euphmisims?

Well I use them so people know what i'm talking about.

I didn't make them up, they really are just what comes to mind when i'm writing because they are so present in the discourse.

Skeptic- "..living animal of the human species.."

sounds more scientific than religious to me.

Yes, but euphemisms arise, and persist, only because they spin something, obscure certain aspects of a thing and amphasize others. You use the "abortion rights" euphemism because that is the culture you are a part of, and that culture wants to obscure the issue; you'd lose if you didn't. Can you imagine what the polls would look like if for the last fourty years we asked, not whether a woman has a right to an abortion, but whether she should have a right to commit feticide? (That would be the most accurate, spin free way of posing the question.) Or how about the opposite view. What would the polls looked like if for the last fourty years newcasters and pollster and polisci profs talked about the fetus's rights, the fetus's freedom from abortion? Well, I don't think your side would be doing as well.

And how religion to blame for your use of euphemisms and your unconcerned attitude about ending innocent human life?

Let me put it this way.

You think there is a heaven after death.

And you think that god won't let you in unless your against abortion.

You don't use reason to win your argument (although reasonable people can disagree on abortion), you just feed off your religious fear of death.

That's how religion colours this debate.

And STFU about the euphamisims for christ's sake.

I already say that they're used just to make oneself unserstood. And guess what! You use them too!

There's no proof that being anti-abortion is being "pro-life". You have no poof that life begins at conception, its just your "belief".

You religious people are so full of it.

You want everyone to believe that you really care about all the "dead babies", but all you really care about is your ticket into heaven.

Your preacher says abortion is wrong and must be opposed, than you think its wrong and must be opposed because you believe (without any evidence) that there is an afterlife and you want in.

If your preaher told you that Jews were evil Jesus-killes and needed to be opposed, you would believe that Jews are evil Jesus-killers and need to be opposed, because you believe in an afterlife and you want in.

Oh wait.

And not even a hypthetical, that's just one example of the terrible things Christianty has made people believe over the years by using the fear of death to manipulate people.

Religion is the enemey of reason.

HeHe: you wanna stop railing against imaginary opponents and talk to a real person? I haven't mentioned heaven, I don't have a preacher, and I think there are reasons to oppose abortion even if heaven doesn't exist. It is you who denies that reasonable people can disagree with you. I think a reasonable person could disagree with my view of abortion very easily, by denying that fetuses are living animals of the human species. Unfortunately for such people, it is rather difficult to _believe_ this when the un-alive hunk of tissue is kicking and yawning (and screaming when stabbed) in the womb. If we don't have proof that life begins before birth, it could only be in the sense that we don't have proof that life begins ever. But think about this, the little nothing to which you give no rights can be healthy or sick without the mother thus being healthy or sick. We can't say that about unalive things, and we can't say it about hunks of tissue that are really part of the mother. It seems to me that this implies it is its own living substance. See: Reason. Argument. Try it sometime.

Now heaven and hell may be very powerful psychological motivators to do what you know is right, but my belief and hope is that even without this motivator people can sometimes be convinced to do what is right, just because it is right.

When I speak of "Religious People" I speak about the vast majority of people opposed to abortion.

Maybe you have a non-religious basis for your anti-abortion stand, which may be totally reasonable .

But this debate is driven by the Religious Reich, a dangerous authoritarian movement.

HeHe: It's interesting to see that when faced with an argument against your position, you neither concede nor argue back.

Umm....what was the argument?

I just thouht I'd clear up what I meant by religious.

Look, there are reasonable positions against abortion I've said that the whole time.

My biggest argument against its banning is that prohibition doesn't work.

Look at drug-use. Prohibition has done nothing but turn its distribution into a criminal enterprise that fuels criminal gang wars.

The same will happen with abortion if its made illigal. It will still go on, but it will be unsafe for the mother and become a lucrative trade for criminal groups.

The government won't be able to stop it becuase it can't fight suppy and demand.

To me that's the best argument for keeping abortion legal.

There were fewer abortions under Clinton than under Reagan?

Why? Because we had a thriving economy whose gains were shared even by the poorest. People could afford to keep their children.

That's the key to reducing abortions, economic growth for all.

HeHe: Your full of it. Is the prohibition on murder a success? Well, no, murder still happens... but the number of murders is lower because of it.

And I don't think that poverty is to blame for murdering one's children, expecially in our society where even the poor have DVD players and people line up to adopt. Given these facts, I think laziness, selfishness, and cowardice are more likely explanations.