Do you think if we took abortion off of the table people would vote very differently?
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JLeslie (
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August 19th, 2009
A close friend of mine is pro-life but votes Democrat. She argues that this one issue is the main reason for why people vote as they do. It made me wonder if this is really true. I know so many people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal who agree on 90% of issues, yet half of them vote and identify Republican and the other half Democrat. What are your thoughts?
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9 Answers
Relatives of mine (a couple) do not focus on politics and vote Republican simply because they are pro-life, and presumably they do so because of their Catholic faith.
I believe there are very few one issue people. Evangelicals which comprise 10% of the population make up the majority of these voters and not even all of them are single issue voters. Yes, they exist, but it’s not a half/half split, most people evaluate all issues and make what they think is the best overall decision.
I’ve considered voting Republican because of the abortion issue, to be honest. Except with people like Sarah Palin on the ticket, it’s easier to let that issue slide a bit and vote Democrat.
I am conservative in my own actions (I am pro-life – lots of reasons, but religion has NOTHING to do with it) but I usually vote as a democrat as my liberal views go way beyond that one issue. You probably already deduced that if I wouldn’t vote Republican based on that one issue, I certainly wouldn’t vote Republican without that issue. I haven’t really read up on statistics, but while I am sure there are people that would have made a different vote based on this issue, I don’t think that there would be enough people changing that if would have affected the election outcome.
The Republicans would have to drop a lot more than that platform for me to even consider voting for one.
I tend to vote based on ecological reasons, so not I.
Some people talk like they might vote differently (the only examples I can think of are pro-life Christians), though I’m not sure they really would.
In my family there are a few people who will vote for the pro-life candidate no matter how much they disagree with him or her on all other issues.
I am pro-choice but typically vote Republican.
The man who was in a large part responsible (along with my dad) for helping me shape my liberal views of the world has gradually drifted to the political right, with the pro-life issue bas the single
issue that started that drift.
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