They’re liars and hypocrites. If they wanted to be taken seriously, they need to create a world where abortions are unnecessary, not illegal. As it is, Democratic policies do more to reduce abortion than Republican ones. But they wouldn’t dare to acknowledge that, because then they’d lose even more “pro-life” voters.

Also, about the exceptions in cases of rape and incest: women don’t have to prove that they were raped in court; they just have to be willing to talk to the police and file a report after having had an abortion. Most women obviously won’t file a false report, so this is really all that is necessary to enforce the restriction.

A couple points about this, hellogoodbye.
1) Going to the police (and filing a report about your abortion) are not insignificant things. What if you were raped by an officer? What if the officers don’t believe you. How much extra time off of work do you have to take? And do you really want police agencies to have records of every woman in their area who have had an abortion? What if a woman has more than one.. will that raise doubts on her claims?
2) False reports. I’m sure everyone on this site knows most women won’t file a false rape report, but that doesn’t mean the police or anyone else will believe you. Just look at popular opinion.

Also, about the exceptions in cases of rape and incest: women don’t have to prove that they were raped in court; they just have to be willing to talk to the police and file a report after having had an abortion. Most women obviously won’t file a false report, so this is really all that is necessary to enforce the restriction.

The whole late-term abortion moral panic is a triumph of rhetoric over facts. We already have provisions to make it easier in the early part of the pregnancy and progressively more difficult as the pregnancy continues–women can’t just wake up one day in their eighth or ninth month and deciding that hey! Time for thab abortion! When they are done (and late term abortions are very rare) they are done for health reasons.

What I would like to see from the no-choice crowd is an acknowledgement that the solutions they offer–such as adoption–actually do serious psycholocial harm to the mother. But this has always been about punishing women.

Additionally, and I’m not sure exactly how to describe this, but some of the factors surrounding Sarah Palin lead to a glamorization of pro-life ideas. In short, I think a lot of people within the influence of Republican media now feel more comfortable identifying with a strong pro-life position. The conditions that fostered this rise in pro-life identification were temporary, and I think this effect in the polls will dissipate.

The average pro-lifer thinks women are terminating 37 week pregnancies, having the brains sucked out of perfectly healthy babies for shits and giggles.

Acquainting them with the laws, the reality and the REASONS for intact D&X doesn’t phaze them. They find the image useful, and the reality of an average woman losing a wanted child with extreme hydrocephalus to be…disquieting.

If this question was worded, “Do you think abortion should be available up until the point of viability, and then only for medical reasons after?” which is the status quo, I think the results would be enormously different.

In the last year, we had a HUGE media shitstorm, the upshot of which was the destruction of the Republican party (yay!) in exchange for the apotheosis of the Palins, mère et fille, for “Chosing Life”. Since he couldn’t win the presidency, John McCain turned his campaign into a three-month ad and media blitz for how you should keep a fetus no matter what — even if it has Down syndrome, you already have three kids, you’re in a job that requires constant travel and stress and might cause a miscarriage spontaneously… or even “you’re seventeen and your parents have well-known barbaric attitudes toward promiscuity, and your boyfriend is a total flake”.

After that much publicity, we should expect “Pro Life” to be more popular than Coca Cola. It’ll fade, and it doesn’t mean women won’t make their own choices if they have to.