{"id":699,"date":"2009-02-11T09:03:09","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T09:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/pro-lifers-it-turns-out-were-a.html"},"modified":"2009-02-11T09:03:09","modified_gmt":"2009-02-11T09:03:09","slug":"pro-lifers-it-turns-out-were-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/pro-lifers-it-turns-out-were-a.html","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Lifers, It Turns Out, Were a Big Part of Obama’s Winning Coalition"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently telling a Democratic friend about Obama’s abortion balancing act. One day he repeals the Mexico City “gag rule” <\/a>delighting pro-choice activists. The next week he seems intent on making it up to pro-life voters, announcing that one priority of a new faith-based council will be reducing the need for abortion<\/a>.
\nMy friend interrupted and said, “why should we care about appeasing the pro-lifers? We won.”
\nThe first reason, I said, is because Obama promised. <\/a>
\nBut then I thought about the word “we.” Obviously my friend was making a realpolitick assumption that his side, the Obama coalition, was almost entirely pro-choice. But is that really true?
\nNo. Pro-lifers made up a meaningful percentage of Obama’s winning coalition. Professor John Green of University of Akron, czar of all religion-and-politics polling, reports that based on not-yet-released survey conducted in December, about a quarter of Obama’s vote came from pro-lifers, defined as people “wanting serious restrictions on abortion, but not necessarily a full ban on abortions.” What’s more, Green will report, about one third of young voters who went for Obama are pro-life.
\nThese findings comport with Beliefnet’s own less scientific user survey.<\/a>
\nNow obviously, pro-choicers made up an even bigger portion of his coalition. But pro-lifers comprised a surprisingly big minority.
\nAs a point of reference, this would mean that pro-lifers made up a bigger percentage of Obama’s vote than….union members, white Catholics, Jews, gays, Latinos or 18-21 year olds.
\nAs a good Democrat, you’d never think of being so cavalier with those groups, why would you blow off the pro-lifers?
\nThe strong showing comes in part because Obama improved with Latinos, evangelicals, Catholics, and regular church-goers. Obama doesn’t have to act on abortion right away — most of Obama’s religious voters care more about the economy than abortion — but he also shouldn’t think that he can abandon his abortion reduction promises without political consequences.
\nUPDATE: For those curious about the methodology, Prof. Green described to me how the term “pro-lifer” was defined. The following question was asked:<\/p>\n

“Now I would like you to think about the issue of abortion. Which of
\nthese statements comes closest to your views on abortion…
\n(1) It should be legal and solely up to a woman to decide, OR
\n(2) It should be legal in a wide variety of circumstances, OR
\n(3) It should be legal in only a few circumstances such as to
\nsave the life of the mother, OR
\n(4) It should not be legal at all” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those who answered #3 or #4 were counted as “pro-life.” Seems like a very solid methodology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently telling a Democratic friend about Obama’s abortion balancing act. One day he repeals the Mexico City “gag rule” delighting pro-choice activists. The next week he seems intent on making it up to pro-life voters, announcing that one priority of a new faith-based council will be reducing the need for abortion. My friend…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nPro-Lifers, It Turns Out, Were a Big Part of Obama's Winning Coalition - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/02\/pro-lifers-it-turns-out-were-a.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pro-Lifers, It Turns Out, Were a Big Part of Obama's Winning Coalition - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was recently telling a Democratic friend about Obama’s abortion balancing act. 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