Decisively Poor Choice, You Say?

Depends on how you word the question:

An Ekos poll released today trumpets that Canadians are “decisively” pro-choice. On the rather straight-forward question of “Thinking about your general views on abortion, would you say you are more pro-life or pro-choice.” I consider that a non-leading question and yet it allows for ambiguity. It says nothing about policy or restrictions. Indeed, other polls show a majority of Canadians to be “pro-choice” but favouring many limits on abortion (see my previous post and this Environics poll). For a poll that purports to show a country is “decisively” behind one position, the reality is that just over one-half of respondents think of themselves as more pro-choice than pro-life; in other words, the respondents may be accepting the typical Canadian default position of supporting “choice” although they may personally still have reservations about abortion or dislike (but tolerate) the practice. The headline implies strong support for abortion, but reading between the lines and knowing what other polls show, Canadians take a more nuanced view of abortion than Frank Graves’ outfit seems to acknowledge.

(The Interim)

When the question is worded differently, the results too are much different. And, as this Globe and Mail poll shows, only 16% of the respondents believe that abortion is always morally acceptable. Other 26% answered "sometimes". The rest (about 59%) believe that abortion is never morally acceptable. Some of them may not yet be ready to abolish it altogether, but they don't consider it an acceptable moral choice either.

As for the question whether access to "safe abortions" should be part of a maternal health plan, the CBC online poll shows that Ignatieff and others who supported his motion are at odds with Canadians. Only 31% agree with including abortions in maternal health plan - in spite of an attempt to sugarcoat the proposal by using the words "access" and "safe". If the question simply read "should abortions be part of a maternal health plan", the number of affirmative answers would be even lower.

So, it all depends on the question you ask. Looks like some people still believe that when "choice" is mentioned - it probably means something good. That's why we have the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform whose volunteers are working hard to show what exactly the pro-aborts mean when they say "choice".