Ken Berwitz
How successful have mainstream media been in burying the truly sickening videos showing Planned Parenthood executives indifferently discussing the price for various intact baby parts – which cannot legally be sold at a profit – as they sip their wine or munch their lunch?
Very successful, if your measure is strictly whether these videos have seen the light of day. My congratulations to them on a job well done….the job being acting as paid propagandists for Planned Parenthood.
But maybe not so successful if your measure is public sentiment toward Planned Parenthood.
A little-noticed poll is challenging the widely toutednarrative that most Americans oppose GOP effortsto defund Planned Parenthood.
The nationwide poll conductedby the Robert Morris University Polling Institute found that 53.3 percent ofthose surveyed support moving federal funding from Planned Parenthood tocommunity clinics that do not offer abortions, while 31.5 percent are opposed.
One of Planned Parenthood\’stop talking points is that polls have shown that most Americans disagree withrecent Republican defunding efforts. So what accounts for the difference?
The key lies in thewording of the question, the pollster said. While previous surveys have askedfor a straight yes-or-no response on defunding, the RMU poll used a moredetailed question that reflects the recent GOP proposals.
“CongressionalRepublicans favor shifting Planned Parenthood federalfunds to community clinics that perform the same services, but do not performabortions,” the RMU question says. “Would you say you support or oppose thisplan?”
In other words, this poll – unlike most others – separates abortion from other women\’s health services, thus it gives us a look at whether respondents support Planned Parenthood because they are “pro-choice”, or whether they just don\’t want to lose the other services that are provided – i.e. to use a pretty apropos cliche, they don\’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water.
Planned Parenthood can point to a large number of polls showing the country supports its existence….but they do not separate these two issues as is done in the poll referenced above. Illustratively, here is a question used earlier this year in an NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll (bold print is mine):
“Would you favor or oppose totally eliminating federal funding to Planned Parenthood for family planning and preventative health services? … And, would you strongly or somewhat favor/oppose this?”
Any doubt about how well Planned Parenthood came out?
One other thing: in the above excerpt, Ms. Richardson refers to “a little-noticed poll”.
Well here are some polling data which, I suspect, are also “little-noticed”, even though they have been out there for years (again, thank you mainstream media), which show that the USA is split on abortion.
Look at the following two graphs, from Gallup:
As you can see, there is no slam-dunk support for abortion in this country; support for the pro-life position has, for years, hovered in the mid 40\’s. And even among people who support a woman\’s right to abort, most feel there should be limitations on when she can and cannot do so.
Should any of this affect your personal position on abortion? Of course not. But it should definitely affect your understanding of where the country is on abortion….and how strong pro-life sentiment is, despite how avidly mainstream media have tried to move the country to the pro-choice side.
