Trends

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

An interesting finding in recent polling on social issues. I'll let this piece give the details:

Americans are now evenly split on same-sex marriage: 47 percent support marriage rights for gays and lesbians, and 47 percent oppose them. That stalemate won't last long—critics of gay unions are dying off. According to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute, only 31 percent of Americans over age 65 support gays getting hitched, compared to 62 percent of Americans under 30.

But strong millennial support for gay marriage has not translated into an uptick in acceptance of other sexual freedoms, like the right to an abortion. The Public Religion Research Institute notes that popular support for keeping abortion legal has dipped a percentage point since 1999, and young Americans are not swelling the ranks of abortion rights supporters. Today, while 57 percent of people under 30 see gay sex as "morally acceptable," only 46 percent of them would say the same thing about having an abortion.

The institute calls this a "decoupling of attitudes." Support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights have traditionally gone hand-in-hand, and that's changing. Though young people today are "more educated, more liberal, and more likely to be religiously unaffiliated" than their parents—all factors traditionally correlated with support of abortion rights—they are not actually more likely to support abortion.

The article goes on to give some reasons as to why this decoupling is occurring, but I believe the issue is much more simple than that - gay marriage, as it is, has been a reality for millennials (folks ages 19-29) for most of their politically/socially aware lives now, and they see quite clearly how the issue really doesn't matter - gay people getting married doesn't impact their straight marriages, or their lives at all, really. There's no harm involved. The difference with abortion is that the harm involved remains self-evident - at the end of the day, we know how many abortions occur, and such "decoupling," as it were, likely reflects that difference. I also speculate that many do not see the abortion issue as one of "rights," but rather one of life. That those who self-identify as pro-life remains competitive ideologically with those who self-identify as pro-choice for the first time in a while may be a sign of that.

Why do you think these issues are separating? Should they truly be falling under the same social umbrella? What am I missing here?

Comments

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

The woman is UNQUESTIONABLY a person, as opposed to the nebulousness of the fetus, so you don't get to tell the one who IS a person that their rights are trumped by the one that only MIGHT be a person."

A person who shoots blindly into the trees knowing that there's a chance someone amongst them and kills a human being he did not see there still has at least some responsibility for his actions.

In other words, to which side does one get to err when the possibility of life is threatened? Typically the responsibility is to err on the side of life unless it can be shown with certainty that it is not at risk.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

A person who shoots blindly into the trees knowing that there's a chance someone amongst them and kills a human being he did not see there still has at least some responsibility for his actions.

Except that you can't convict for murder based on a hypothetical. And in the absence of concrete evidence of personhood, that's pretty much what you're asking for. Which brings up the question: If abortion is illegal, do you support prosecuting and punishing the woman who terminates her own pregnancy? Because if not, you're simply going to encourage reputable doctors to stop treating those women, who will then turn to back-alley chop-shops or do-it-yourself methods, but if so, you're necessarily telling a woman what she can and can't do with her own body, which is as morally reprehensible to me as trying to prosecute someone who attempts suicide for breaking anti-suicide laws.

Typically the responsibility is to err on the side of life unless it can be shown with certainty that it is not at risk.

A whole LOT of laws would be VERY different if that were actually the case, from tobacco and alcohol permissions to speed limits and health care regulations.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

We have varying degrees of punishment even within the parameters of murder. I see no reason why parameters can't be established (outside of murder charges) for the unique conditions that inherently surround the unique biological situations pregnancy presents.

No, I would not prosecute the women themselves, there is enough pre-existing emotional stress involved, and there's no need to impose outside stress on top of that.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Not gonna prosecute the women themselves? So, criminal then in the sense of a violation, where jail is not appropriate, but a fine is? I mean if it's illegal in a punitive justice system, there must be punishment. Outside stress is indeed required, even if it's just a $2 fine.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

By the logic of the pro-life movement, though, you should prosecute them. Even in the case of miscarriage because how can you really know? Unless you're willing to admit that all life is equal but some is more equal than others.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly certain your assumptions about what I should or should not think have been passed through several of your trademarked self-made filters first. I'll sleep well as I ignore them.