Forget for a moment the typical arguments of why abortion should or should not be legal. Forget for a moment the stance your party takes on it. Forget for a moment the intricacies and politics.
I want you to look at the following 5 charts and see why Anti-Choice Americans should lose on policy grounds and democracy alone.
Chart 1
Support for abortion has dipped in the past, but it is not at all low now. Support difference is one of the highest it’s been in decades, and it doesn’t appear to be headed downward fast, if at all. As such, the mass majority of Americans oppose draconian restrictions and bans. You cannot pretend to represent the nation when you see this data.
Chart 2
Not only is it clear that both men and women want legal abortion, women, who are most affected, show a massive difference in support versus opposition. When thinking about restricting rights, and the innocent people’s who’s rights you are restricting are clearly against it, there is no basis for doing so.
Chart 3
Opposition to abortion only gets close in the age where you can’t have one. This is once again showing that the majority of opposition comes form people who will not be impacted by it. Those who can be are vehemently opposed to it being restricted.
Chart 4
The US system operates, rightly or wrongly, on the moderate swing vote. It is clear that the country as a whole does not lean towards more restrictions, but rather more legality. It’s not even close, as the number of Republicans is lower than the number of Democrats anyway, and in both populations the moderates oppose restrictions.
Chart 5
43% of adults in the USA identify as Protestant Christian. 59% of those identify as Evangelical. 29% of all Protestants are white, and only 56% of them are Evangelical. Thus, in essence, the only group who’s population expresses a positive attitude towards banning abortion has a population of 7% of the USA.
Summary
Being anti-choice is very much against the grain of US public opinion. Support is at a high and opposition is at a low, with a gulf between them. Those impacted by restrictions, women up to 50 years of age, are strongly in opposition to bans. Moderates of both parties are against bans. And only 7% of the US population is in a religious group that opposes abortion rights.
It is simply unimaginable that in a nation of and by the people, laws could be put in place so much against the will of the people without consequence. And that is why Anti-Choice Americans should lose.