As mentioned in a recent Front Page story, Herman Cain made waves recently by simultaneously declaring that life begins at conception, and his opposition to abortion, while making the libertarian argument that abortion should be a legal choice between a woman and her doctor.
I believe that life beings at conception, and abortion under no circumstances. ... [But] it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family, and whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't try to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive decision.
No doubt, Cain considers this position "pro-life", as would many. Others who hold the exact same view might consider themselves "pro-choice". Conversely, there are many people who consider themselves "pro-choice" because they support legal abortion in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, but oppose all other circumstances -- a position that is essentially identical to self-described "pro-life"rs such as George W. Bush. So what's going on?
Every year, Gallup releases a (relatively) in-depth survey on American attitudes toward abortion. In the last two years, the "pro-life" position has been in the lead (51-42 in 2009, and a slimmer 47-45 in 2010). This year, according to Gallup's press release back in May, the "pro-choice" position has retaken a slim advantage, 49-45.
As Herman Cain reminds us, a graph charting only whether someone considers themselves "pro-life" or "pro-choice" tells you very little about their actual views of legal abortion. When you actually get into the detailed questions and answers, you'll find the number of Americans who are truly "pro-choice", as we would define it, is actually quite small.
Gallup's longest-running measure of abortion views asks Americans if abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances. The plurality of Americans, 50%, continue to choose the middle position on this, saying abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, as majorities or pluralities have since 1975.
So we have roughly a quarter of Americans believing abortion should always be illegal, and a quarter of Americans believing it should always be legal, and the rest believing legality is dependent on specific circumstances. But people vary wildly on what "circumstances" constitute a pro-life or pro-choice position. On this question (which is, frankly, the only one that matters), we have to go into one of Gallup’s in-depth reports, which they only publish every decade or so. Here’s the most recent full report:
http://www.gallup.com/...
Gallup compiles their own surveys with AP, NYT, and others, to get the most accurate breakdown on Americans views of abortion’s legality in specific circumstances. The results:
84% of Americans believe abortion should be legal to protect the life of the woman
83% of Americans believe abortion should be legal to protect the physical health of the woman
79% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in cases of rape or incest
64% of Americans believe abortion should be legal to protect the mental health of the woman
53% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if the baby would be mentally impaired
51% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if the baby would be physically impaired
42% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if pregnancy would force a teenager to drop out of school
39% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if the woman/family can’t afford the baby
39% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if the woman/family don’t want any more children
35% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if the couple doesn’t want to marry
29% of Americans believe abortion should be legal for fertility selection (when fertility process create multiple embryos)
25% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if pregnancy would interfere with a woman’s career
Think about these numbers for a moment. Only 39% of Americans believe it should be legal for a woman to choose abortion if she can’t afford to be a mom? Only 25% (!!) of Americans believe abortion should be legal in the case of a career woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant at that time? And again – these are not questions over whether abortion would be moral in these circumstances, but whether it should even be a legal option under such a circumstance.
I think most here would agree that if you do not believe that a woman has a legal right to terminate a pregnancy so she can continue her career, or for any other reason of her personal choice, then you are not pro-choice by any meaningful definition of the term. It’s like including people who eat chicken and fish as “vegetarians” in a survey, as long as they don’t eat red meat. That they may call themselves "vegetarians" is interesting but ultimately irrelevant. That’s just not what the word means. They aren’t vegetarians.
Herman Cain may call himself "pro-life", and he may indeed be "pro-life" in his heart, but saying the government can't restrict or ban legal abortion in cases of choice is a fundamentally pro-choice position. Not only that, it's a pro-choice position that is actually fairly far on the left of the scale. As we see above, only 25% of Americans believe abortion should be legal if a woman makes the choice to put career first at that point in her life -- a position that it would seem Herman Cain (and most of us here) would agree with.
What's interesting is that the two front-runners in the Republican polls in the past two weeks are Mitt Romney, who was unapologetically pro-choice for his entire career until he decided to run for President, and Herman Cain, who says he believes life begins at conception, but opposes any government interference in keeping it legal. For the people who are single-issue voters on abortion (and there are many), it's quite possible that a Romney or Cain nomination would open the door to an independent Christian Conservative(tm) run. Perhaps Santorum isn't finished yet!