Illinoisans are far more moderate and unified on abortion than headlines suggest. Same for the nation. – Udated and Corrected – Wirepoints Quickpoint

Hot tempers and strong emotions on both sides dominate the headlines on abortion, but polls tell a different story in both Illinois and across the nation.

Most Illinoisans — 51% — favor allowing abortion but not after 20 weeks, according to an Ogden & Fry poll as reported by Fox Chicago. Forty-Eight percent favor allowing abortions after 20 weeks or with no restrictions at all. On its face, current Illinois law allows abortion up to viability, which is generally regarded as 24 weeks. However, the law includes an exception when the mother’s health is at risk, which is often claimed to include mental health, effectively allowing abortion at later stages, though I cannot confirm that.

Illinoisans oppose taxpayer funding for abortion by two to one. Illinois does it. Asked if taxpayer dollars should support abortion, the poll found that 28% said yes; no, 56%; unsure, 17%.

Illinoisans also overwhelmingly favor requiring parental notification for minors getting an abortion — 78% favor parental notification, according to the poll. Illinois rescinded its parental notification requirement last year.

Ogden and Fry has Republican connections, but national polls are consistent. In fact, they generally show national support for abortion dropping earlier in the term. Pew Research found just 41% favor unrestricted abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. Support drops further for later terms. A recent poll from The Wall Street Journal found more Americans support a ban on abortions 15 weeks or more into a pregnancy than oppose it.

Public opinion doesn’t tell you what’s right or wrong on this issue; we don’t, either. What’s clear, however, is that there’s far less division than it seems from the headlines and heated rhetoric. Simplistic polls about how many are “pro-choice” versus “pro-life” often obscure the full story.

-Mark Glennon

This column was updated and corrected on the description of Illinois law, which on its face allows abortion only through viability. The sentences regarding the exception were added.

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Lion's Choice
1 year ago

Pritzker’s plan is to make abortion both

— a tourist attraction

and

— a giant new welfare program, where Illinois taxpayers pay for the abortion of anyone who travels here for that procedure — plus their air fare, hotels, and meals

If that isn’t enough to make Illinoisans revolt, then they deserve to have Pritzker as their governor

con
1 year ago

When the abortion law was changed, many Illinoisans complained that abortion was being allowed for up to 9 months. But the article states Illinois law only allows up to 24 weeks for elective abortion. Are Illinoisans being fed false information?

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

My understanding is that it can be used to protect mother’s mental and physical health. Do you think an abortion provider will refuse to ‘check the box’ to certify the mother’s mental health was at risk if she was ‘forced’ to carry her baby for full term? These are baby murders, they have no morals.

nixit
1 year ago

Why is AOC doing a media tour when she should be drafting legislation? I would love to read the first draft of her bill.

jajujon
1 year ago

Anti-abortion political candidates and activists should be highlighting this state’s gross misalignment with its own population – allowing more time to have abortions, taxpayer funding and hiding abortions from parents. Illinois’ politicians are proud that the state is the abortion murder capital of the Midwest. Force libs and progressives to explain why they have pushed too far on this (like so many other far left issues) and demand they impose more limitations. If we can’t save all those little lives, maybe we can save some of them. Democrats hope to use Roe v. Wade through the mid-term elections as an… Read more »

nixit
1 year ago
Reply to  jajujon

Anti-abortion political candidates can’t because they backed themselves into a corner too. We needed a gubernatorial challenger that reflected the views of the majority. Instead, we’ve got two guys on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

JB is going to paint Bailey as a guy who wants to take abortion rights away from women completely. Unless Bailey can pivot to the majority stance, he’s not going to be as effective painting JB as the monster he is on the subject.

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

IL voters know JB is a monster. But he’s the very wealthy Democrat’s monster. And 700,000 new voters, dead, alive, comatose, children, non-existent, whomever, will show up – just like last election – to make sure JB wins in Nov. This election isn’t about the undecided. It doesn’t matter one iota what the politicians say about each other. This election is entirely about turnout. JB ‘won’ last election because we are told that 700,000 new voters showed up to vote for JB that had not voted in any gubernatorial race in my life time. Rauner lost only 100,000 votes from… Read more »

Last edited 1 year ago by debtsor
nixit
1 year ago
Reply to  debtsor

You could say Rauner technically gained 100K votes as he lost 200K votes to the newly-invented “Conservative” party candidate Sam McCann in 2018.

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdil/pr/former-illinois-state-senator-gubernatorial-candidate-sam-mccann-indicted-alleged

Former Illinois State Senator, Gubernatorial Candidate Sam McCann Indicted for Alleged Fraudulent Use of Campaign Funds, Money Laundering, Tax Evasion

Sand
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

Exactly, Nixit. Last night, I asked my husband why Bailey would run knowing he cannot win with a Trump endorsement and given his pro-life stance. I thought this was the year to see my upper-middle class Lake Co suburb return to some semblance of what it was when I moved here. Moderates and some liberals in my area are turned off by what’s happened and still happening in our schools. In fact, they’re mad. But you won’t pick off these voters with someone who is endorsed by Trump or is extreme pro-life. There’s a middle ground and we didn’t see… Read more »

nixit
1 year ago
Reply to  Sand

My advice to moderates wanting to vote against Pritzker but can’t buy into Bailey is to skip that section entirely. Removes a +1 from JB’s totals and sends the message that, while you won’t side with a Trump-backed candidate, JB hasn’t earned your vote. Not filling out a ballot entirely leaves you vulnerable to the wackos, because the wackos WILL show up and vote.

I said the same thing in the CCSA race to my Dem friends. Told them if you can’t bring yourself to vote for the Republican, leave it blank.

Sand
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

Nixit, I voted this morning bc of what you said. Thanks 😉

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

The news media has beclowned themselves with this too. There’s no shortage of bluecheck tweets acting shocked upon discovering that the 15 week Mississippi law was the same as most of Europe. They had no idea that the US is the abortion capital of the world and now they love it. SHOUT YOUR ABORTION!

Silverfox
1 year ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

Indeed, Mark, I remember that blast from the past.  I’m so old that I also remember before the 1973 Roe decision that the reasons given by abortion proponents were to stop back-alley abortions performed in unsanitary conditions with coat hangers by unqualified persons.  We needed doctors to perform them in hospitals or special clinics.   Now, of course, proponents say that it’s safer than a tonsillectomy or you can take pills unsupervised using instructions simpler than those for putting Lincoln logs together.  Fifty years ago we were trying to save 11 year old girls from the trauma of giving birth to a baby conceived… Read more »

nixit
1 year ago

Democrats backed themselves into an all-or-nothing corner. If they agree to legislation that reflects how the majority of Americans feel on this topic, it nullifies their entire “my body, my choice” and abortion on demand platform.

Moderates should draft legislation that reflect the majority viewpoint. That would definitely put pressure on the Progressives more than anyone. Force them to vote no on something they stand for. They wouldn’t survive the next primary.

Sand
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

Yes!

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

“They wouldn’t survive the next primary.” You’re absolutely right but not in the way you think…. Any Democrat that refuses to vote for a 100% abortion on-demand, mobile abortion clinics, post-birth abortions WILL be primaried by a crazy nut job even further to the left, and WIN. https://www.timesofisrael.com/legislator-us-rabbi-in-illinois-loses-democratic-primary-bid/ Legislator US rabbi in Illinois loses Democratic primary bid …Kalish, 44, angered many voters in June when he voted “present” on the Reproductive Health Act, reversing what other lawmakers described as a commitment to support the abortion rights bill, Patch reported. Kalish said at the time that he had hoped to support… Read more »

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

“They wouldn’t survive the next primary.” You’re absolutely right but not in the way you think…. Any Democrat that refuses to vote for a 100% abortion on-demand, mobile abortion clinics, post-birth abortions WILL be primaried by a crazy nut job even further to the left, and WIN. Legislator US rabbi in Illinois loses Democratic primary bid …Kalish, 44, angered many voters in June when he voted “present” on the Reproductive Health Act, reversing what other lawmakers described as a commitment to support the abortion rights bill, Patch reported. Kalish said at the time that he had hoped to support the… Read more »

debtsor
1 year ago
Reply to  nixit

I tried to comment twice but it got caught in spam filter (maybe that’s telling me to go find a new job or something}: “They wouldn’t survive the next primary.” You’re absolutely right but not in the way you think…. Any Democrat that refuses to vote for a 100% on-demand, mobile clinics, post-birth WILL be primaried by a crazy nut job even further to the left, and WIN. Rep. Kalish, a religious representative voted Present for the most permissive bill in the country, and he got his butt kicked out of office for voting his conscience. Progressives run the state… Read more »

Susan
1 year ago

For many, this is an issue about who must be forced to pay for others’ irresponsible behaviour. We all know it is fun and feels good to insert a penis into a vagina and ejaculate. But shouldn’t the consequences of that fun frolic belong to the participants enjoying the act, rather than society at large? If healthcare is deemed to be a “right” of Americans, and this procedure is to be deemed health care, does America have a plan to address the shortage of licensed providers willing and able to work under conditions they deem unethical: such as extending QALY… Read more »

Waggs
1 year ago
Reply to  Susan

Correct. The rise of birth control timed with Roe v. Wade decoupled sex from long-term monogamous relationships, aka the freedom to be promiscuous. And what do we have to show for it? The destruction of the family, devaluation of human life, the rise of all forms of sexual perversion… need to go on? Of course, each one of those examples is followed by its own flowchart of consequences. But, as long as I can have a shag whenever I want, it’s all good…

Goodgulf Greyteeth
1 year ago

I think that the Roe v Wade abortion silly-season will have a pretty short shelf life. Basically, abortion returns to whatever a majority of voters in each state think, or thought, it ought to be, or have been, if Roe didn’t count. Hard to gin that up into a constitutional crisis of democracy and oppression among people who are focused on trying to decide if they should put food on their table, or clothes on their kids, or gas in their car. Joe-n-Jane Sixpack – who are probably also noticing that the people who are really proud of making it… Read more »

Last edited 1 year ago by Goodgulf Greyteeth
ProzacPlease
1 year ago

Agree. The people who are up in arms about the decision would have voted Dem anyway.

Freddy
1 year ago

Here’s something to ponder. A women can get a late term abortion in Illinois legally but if she gives birth and kills the baby right after birth she will get charged with murder or manslaughter. So in the womb it is not a human and OK to abort but outside the womb the child is a human and is considered murder. Similar scenario is if a woman is on her way to get an abortion and you hit and kill her crossing the street by accident you will get charged with 2 counts of negligent homicide or 2 counts of… Read more »

Silverfox
1 year ago
Reply to  Freddy

Yes, we could all see the irony this weekend. Pro-abortion demonstrators demanding legal abortion for all nine months juxtaposed with the sad shooting death of five month old, Cecelia Thomas, in Chicago. Five months old outside the womb and it’s a gruesome murder and prosecutable under law; five months inside the womb and she’s fair game to have her body dismembered and discarded. Strange but true.

JackBolly
1 year ago

And just who consistently whips up the ‘heated rhetoric’, like calling for mob action? Uh huh.

Last edited 1 year ago by JackBolly
Wally
1 year ago

Dennis Byrne has article in Chicago Now describing loophole that allows late term and day of birth abortions in IL. Pretty big loophole that abortion doctors use. That is why IL will be abortion capital of Midwest because it allows late term abortions.

Ex Illini
1 year ago

National mainstream media is not concerned with informing the public or the truth. They are interested in the agenda they are pushing and the narrative by which they further that agenda. They will fan the flames on this emotional and divisive issue as long as they can. Between now and the mid term elections you will hear about nothing but abortion and guns, and zero useful information about either.

nixit
1 year ago
Reply to  Ex Illini

Voters passionate about abortion not only vote overwhelmingly Democrat but also show up every election. There are no new voters to mine on this topic. They’re already plugged into their electoral hive mind. If anything, they’ll probably sour the handful of voters still on the fence.

Democrats keep preaching to the same choir.

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