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

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[russj.livejournal.com]

Since you seem to have an opinion about this issue, I suggest that you educate yourself about it by reading what the U.S. Supreme Court has written about it. Then your ignorance about the topic won't be so obvious here.

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Since I'm not American I don't give a shit what the US Supreme Court has to say about it. And really, even if it's couched in terms of right to privacy, that covers a hell of a lot of ground. Nothing trumps bodily autonomy. Or should I have control over your reproductive rights too?

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Also, the US Supreme Court obviously got it wrong if there are able to be so many challenges to the law. So I'm even less inclined to listen to what they have to say and will go on believing in my right to control my own body.

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[russj.livejournal.com]

I agree that the supreme court got it wrong, but you are thinking in a very simplistic manner about rights. Your rights are not absolute.

Most supreme court challenges involve the conflicting rights of more than one person. It is seldom a matter of A has rights, but B does not have rights.

In abortion, the legitimate rights of the child must be weighed against the legitimate rights of her mother.

It is possible to declare that one of them has no rights, but you should be able to back it up with reasonable arguments. My views are on record, (http://www.josephsons.org/russ/abortion.htm) and I don't see this as a simple issue.

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

I can back it up with arguments. The argument that there is no child involved in abortions. Fetuses are not people. They are potential people, they are life forms, but they are entirely dependent on the woman to exist. So yes, her rights should trump the growth inside her. Most countries in the world recognize this, to at least some degree so I don't care at all what your views on record are. I am going to continue to support women who choose whatever option they like in dealing with their pregnancy. You can huff and puff all you want but this is not an intellectual exercise for us like it is for you as a man. It is our real life situation. So THAT is what matters to me.

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[russj.livejournal.com]

So your reasoning is:

a man can't understand

How would you argue it to a woman?

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Same way. No one has the right to tell another human being what they can do with their body. The fact that you are a man trying to do so just makes it all that more wrong.

You also might want to look at how you are presenting things. For example you'll notice that I calmly and reasonably had a discussion with another man in this post. But to come in like you did and say women do not have rights over their own bodies? No, that is not something that can be discussed. That is the exact reason why abortion is legal in most developed countries today, because governments recognize that we do. We are not brooding mares.

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[russj.livejournal.com]

"you did ... say women do not have rights over their own bodies"

No, I never said that.
I merely said that two humans (even two women) can have conflicting rights, where both cannot be completely satisfied.
A woman may not wish to be killed by her mother.

You use a definition of 'human' which excludes the unborn from consideration as 'persons'.

Such a blind attachment to a simplistic ideology is unreasonable in today's world.

Just as blind acceptance of slavery was accepted 200 years ago, but is now seen as barbaric, today's blind acceptance of abortion will be rejected 200 years from now.

Re: Some rights trump other rights

[raichu100.livejournal.com]

"Just as blind acceptance of slavery was accepted 200 years ago, but is now seen as barbaric, today's blind acceptance of abortion will be rejected 200 years from now."

I hope you are right about this.

I also hope that 200 years from now we have the technology to allow fetuses to exist outside the body and still develop. Who knows?