The Dobbs Story

 Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak at NYT:

At every stage of the Dobbs litigation, Justice Alito faced impediments: a case that initially looked inauspicious, reservations by two conservative justices and efforts by colleagues to pull off a compromise. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a conservative, along with the liberal Justice Stephen G. Breyer, worked to prevent or at least limit the outcome. Justice Breyer even considered trying to save Roe v. Wade — the 1973 ruling that established the right to abortion — by significantly eroding it.

To dismantle that decision, Justice Alito and others had to push hard, the records and interviews show. Some steps, like his apparent selective preview of the draft opinion, were time-honored ones. But in overturning Roe, the court set aside more than precedent: It tested the boundaries of how cases are decided.

Justice Ginsburg’s death hung over the process. For months, the court delayed announcing its decision to hear the case, creating the appearance of distance from her passing. The justices later allowed Mississippi to perform a bait-and-switch, widening what had been a narrower attempt to restrict abortion while she was alive into a full assault on Roe — the kind of move that has prompted dismissals of other cases.

The most glaring irregularity was the leak to Politico of Justice Alito’s draft. The identity and motive of the person who disclosed it remains unknown, but the effect of the breach is clear: It helped lock in the result, The Times found, undercutting Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Breyer’s quest to find a middle ground.

In the Dobbs case, the court “barreled over each of its normal procedural guardrails,” wrote Richard M. Re, a University of Virginia law professor and former Kavanaugh clerk on a federal appellate court, adding that “the court compromised its own deliberative process.”

Religion and Abortion

Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.   

From Pew:

Majorities in most of the 24 nations surveyed by Pew Research Center this spring say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. But attitudes differ widely across countries – and often within them. Religiously unaffiliated adults, people on the ideological left and women are more likely to support legal abortion.

 

Abortion Opinion One Year After Dobbs

Lydia Saad at Gallup:

After rising to new heights last year, Americans’ support for legal abortion remains elevated in several long-term Gallup trends.A record-high 69% say abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy. The prior high of 67% was recorded last May after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization draft was leaked, showing that the court planned to nullify constitutional protection for abortion.

Most Americans oppose abortion later in pregnancy, but the 37% saying it should be legal in the second three months of pregnancy and 22% in the last three months of pregnancy are the highest Gallup has found in trends since 1996.

Gallup’s oldest trend on the legality of abortion finds 34% of Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances, nearly matching last year’s record-high 35% and above the 27% average since 1975. Another 51% currently say abortion should be legal under certain circumstances, while 13% (similar to the all-time low of 12%) want it illegal in all circumstances.

Fifty-two percent of Americans say abortion is morally acceptable, matching last year’s all-time high. This is 10 percentage points above the historical average since 2001.

These findings align with Americans’ reaction to the Dobbs decision, which the Supreme Court handed down on June 24, 2022. A 61% majority of Americans think overturning Roe v. Wade, thus ending constitutional protection for abortion rights and returning the matter to the states, was a “bad thing,” while 38% consider it a “good thing.” Last year at this time, shortly after the Dobbs draft was leaked, 63% said overturning Roe v. Wade would be a bad thing and 32% a good thing.

Gallup measures public attitudes on abortion each May as part of its Values and Beliefs poll. The latest survey was conducted May 1-24.

Politics and College Enrollment Choices

Many posts have discussed the politics of higher education.

At Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik reports that politics seems to be affecting students' college enrollment decisions.

We won’t know the impact for sure until after the May 1 deadlines, or, for more colleges, until students actually enroll. But a new study from the Art & Science Group, being released today, found that nearly one in four high school seniors “ruled out institutions solely due to the politics, policies, or legal situation in the state” where the college was located. Further, the study found that “this behavior was statistically true across liberals, moderates and conservatives.”

In addition, Intelligent.com found that 91 percent of prospective college students in Florida disagree with the education policies of Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and one in eight graduating high school students in Florida won’t attend a public college there due to DeSantis’s education policies.

“Of those who aren’t likely to attend a public school, nearly half (49 percent) say it’s due to DeSantis’ education policies. This group makes up 12 percent of all prospective college students, including those who are in agreement with DeSantis’ education policies. Of students who are likely to attend a public school, 78 percent are concerned his education policies will negatively impact their education,” said Intelligent.com, a website focused on students.

Another Supreme Court Leak?

 Jodi Kantor and Jo Becker at NYT:

As the Supreme Court investigates the extraordinary leak this spring of a draft opinion of the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, a former anti-abortion leader has come forward claiming that another breach occurred in a 2014 landmark case involving contraception and religious rights.

In a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and in interviews with The New York Times, the Rev. Rob Schenck said he was told the outcome of the 2014 case weeks before it was announced. He used that information to prepare a public relations push, records show, and he said that at the last minute he tipped off the president of Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain owned by Christian evangelicals that was the winning party in the case.

Both court decisions were triumphs for conservatives and the religious right. Both majority opinions were written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. But the leak of the draft opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion was disclosed in the news media by Politico, setting off a national uproar. With Hobby Lobby, according to Mr. Schenck, the outcome was shared with only a handful of advocates.

Mr. Schenck’s allegation creates an unusual, contentious situation: a minister who spent years at the center of the anti-abortion movement, now turned whistle-blower; a denial by a sitting justice; and an institution that shows little outward sign of getting to the bottom of the recent leak of the abortion ruling or of following up on Mr. Schenck’s allegation.

The evidence for Mr. Schenck’s account of the breach has gaps. But in months of examining Mr. Schenck’s claims, The Times found a trail of contemporaneous emails and conversations that strongly suggested he knew the outcome and the author of the Hobby Lobby decision before it was made public.

...

Mr. Schenck, 64, has shifted his views on abortion in recent years, alienating him from many of his former associates, and is trying to re-establish himself, now as a progressive evangelical leader. His decision to speak out now about the Hobby Lobby episode, he said, stems from his regret about the actions that he claims led to his advance knowledge about the case.

“What we did,” he said, “was wrong.”

...

Supreme Court justices mostly police themselves, which Mr. Schenck said he exploited. While they are subject to the same law on recusals as other federal judges, they are not bound by the ethics code that applies to the rest. (Chief Justice Roberts has said they “consult” it.) Under court norms, they can socialize with lawyers or even parties with interests before them, as long as they do not discuss pending cases.

“I saw us as pushing the boundaries of appropriateness,” Mr. Schenck said.

Public Opinion and SCOTUS

 Chuck Todd at al. at NBC:

In our latest national NBC News poll — conducted after June’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade — the court’s favorability rating has sunk to 35% positive, 42% negative among registered voters.

And a combined 37% of voters say they have very little or no confidence in the nation’s highest court, versus 27% who have great or quite a bit of confidence in the institution.

That’s a reversal from our poll in 2019, when 39% said they had high confidence, while 17% had low confidence.

One more way to look at this image decline: In Jan. 2021 — so at the start of the 6-3 conservative court — almost every demographic group had a net-positive view of the court, including among Democrats, independents and Republicans.

Now? Democrats are at minus-51; independents are at minus-8; and Republicans are plus-36.

Chief Justice John Roberts has stressed the importance of the public’s trust and the dangers of inappropriate political influence.

And Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned that the Supreme Court wouldn’t survive the “stench” of overturning Roe v. Wade.

Well, look at the numbers now.

Secularism and the Pro-Life Movement

David French rebuts the notion that the opposition to abortion is inherently religious:

Atheists are extraordinarily concerned about the environment. Atheists and agnostics are more opposed to the death penalty than any major religious subgroup in America.

Yet atheists are also overwhelmingly pro-choice. But that does not mean that arguments against abortion are inherently religious. One might say that it means that many atheists are inconsistent. Just as many atheists rightly challenge Christians to square their opposition to abortion with their support for the death penalty, I’d challenge my atheist friends to learn about the distinct and separate biological humanity of the unborn child and square their support for abortion with their opposition to the death penalty.

Nat Hentoff couldn’t square that circle. He believed in life as a “seamless garment.” He used a phrase called the “indivisibility of life.” In a 1986 speech, Hentoff wrote that he was deeply influenced by a left-wing thinker named Mary Meehan, and he quoted one of her most famous arguments:

It is out of character for the left to neglect the weak and helpless. The traditional mark of the left has been its protection of the underdog, the weak and the poor. The unborn child is the most helpless form of humanity, even more in need of protection than the poor tenant farmer or the mental patient. The basic instinct of the left is to aid those who cannot aid themselves. And that instinct is absolutely sound. It's what keeps the human proposition going.

This is not an inherently religious argument. It is an argument that reached a man who did not believe in God. It is a moral argument, and moral arguments are not the exclusive prerogative of people of faith.

In fact, while pro-life leaders often make religious arguments—especially to religious audiences—when you talk to veteran pro-life volunteers, they’ll tell you that biology, not the Bible, is often their greatest weapon the in the battle of ideas.

Why do crisis pregnancy centers constantly seek funding for ultrasounds? Why is one of the best, most concrete things you can do for life is to donate for ultrasounds? It’s because of the biological reality that ultrasounds reveal. Parents reading this thread likely can immediately remember the feeling of incredible joy when they heard that first fetal heartbeat. Many of you posted ultrasound pictures on your refrigerator doors. 

Issues, Abortion, and Protest

 Megan Brenan at Gallup:

Nearly four in 10 Americans, 39%, say they have felt the urge to organize or join a public demonstration. This is statistically similar to the previous 36% reading in 2018 but much higher than the 10% who said the same in 1965. The reasons behind Americans' desire to protest today are markedly different than four years ago.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision eliminating abortion as a constitutional right and returning abortion policy decisions to individual state governments, 31% of those who have expressed a desire to protest name the abortion issue as their greatest motivation to do so.

Beyond abortion, the issues now mentioned most as reasons to demonstrate are law enforcement or Black Lives Matter (22%), women's rights (19%), civil or equal rights (11%), and government or political issues (10%).

In 2018, no single issue dominated Americans' protest motivations, although the women's movement led with 17% amid the "Me too" movement, similar to the percentage this year, while 6% cited abortion. Immigration, another high-ranking issue four years ago during the Trump administration's controversial policy changes, is barely on protestors' radar this year. Gun control, which was tied with immigration in 2018, is currently mentioned by 8% of U.S. adults.

Clarence Thomas

Sam Baker at Axios:

The big picture: Thomas has spent years essentially laying out a whole parallel understanding of the law. He’s one of the court’s most prolific authors of solo dissents, according to Adam Feldman of Empirical SCOTUS, and has also written a slew of solo concurrences similar to last week's.Thomas doesn't just write a dissent here and an additional point about a majority holding there, but rather has created a whole ecosystem of opinions that build on and reference each other almost in the same way as the court’s actual precedents, except for the fact that they are all one man speaking only for himself.

Thomas’ solo opinion in last week’s abortion case cited 11 of his past opinions, 10 of which were solo opinions. It drew more heavily from the Clarence Thomas Cinematic Universe than from the rest of the court’s historical precedents, dissents and non-Thomas concurrences.

But as the makeup of the court has shifted around him, Thomas’ views have gotten more influential. And that influence will only grow.“There’s this whole array of concurring and dissenting opinions that are now available for the majority on the court to take more seriously,” said Ralph Rossum, a professor at Claremont McKenna College who wrote a book about Thomas.

Thomas has been able to “plow the field and plant the seeds” that other justices would later “harvest” for their own majority opinions, even if they didn’t join Thomas at the outset, Rossum said. “You see that coming to fruition again on abortion,” Rossum said.

Details: The Supreme Court has protected rights to abortion, same-sex marriage, same-sex intercourse and contraception under the same legal doctrine, known as “substantive due process.”Thomas rejects that entire theory, and so he would throw out every ruling that relies on it.

“That's classic Thomas. There isn't a justice on the court less committed to reliance on precedent than Thomas,” Rossum said. He said Thomas believes the court spends too much time interpreting its own work and too little time on the Constitution.

Abortion and Divergence

Megan Messerly at Politico:

Abortion policy is in the hands of the states following the Supreme Court’s Friday decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But it could take months for all the legal maneuvering to be completed and for the nation to have a more definitive picture over where abortion is legal, said Greer Donley, a professor specializing in reproductive health care at the University of Pittsburgh Law School... Only three states — South Dakota, Louisiana and Kentucky — have laws that immediately ban most abortions.

Most states with so-called trigger laws require the attorney general, governor or legislature to certify that the court’s opinion does, indeed, overturn Roe, include a delay of up to 30 days before they take effect, or both.

In other states, court action will likely be necessary to determine whether states’ pre-Roe abortion bans can take effect or enjoined laws restricting access to the procedure can be lifted, a process legal experts anticipate could take weeks to months. That means abortion will remain legal, at least in the short term, in places such as Ohio.

 Ronald Brownstein at The Atlantic:

The increasing divergence—and antagonism—between the red nation and the blue nation is a defining characteristic of 21st-century America. That’s a reversal from the middle decades of the 20th century, when the basic trend was toward greater convergence.

One element of that convergence came through what legal scholars call the “rights revolution.” That was the succession of actions from Congress and the Supreme Court, mostly beginning in the 1960s, that strengthened the floor of nationwide rights and reduced the ability of states to curtail those rights. (Key moments in that revolution included the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and the Supreme Court decisions striking down state bans on contraception, interracial marriage, abortion, and, much later, prohibitions against same-sex intimate relations and marriage.)

Simultaneously, the regional differences were moderated by waves of national investment, including the New Deal spending on rural electrification, the Tennessee Valley Authority, agricultural price supports, and Social Security during the 1930s, and the Great Society programs that provided federal aid for K–12 schools and higher education, as well as Medicare and Medicaid.

The impact of these investments (as well as massive defense spending across both periods) on states that had historically spent little on public services and economic development helped steadily narrow the gap in per capita income between the states of the old Confederacy and the rest of the country from the 1930s until about 1980. That progress, though, stopped after 1980, and the gap remained roughly unchanged for the next three decades. Since about 2008, [Michael] Podhorzer calculates, the southern states at the heart of the red nation have again fallen further behind the blue nation in per capita income

Abortion Opinion

The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion, and 13 states already have laws that ban abortion in the event of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Another half-dozen states have near-total bans or prohibitions after 6 weeks of pregnancy. https://t.co/VTLTK7zLWk pic.twitter.com/fwMM2CEOzB

— The Associated Press (@AP) June 24, 2022

 Lydia Saad at Gallup:

A Gallup poll conducted mostly after the draft of a Supreme Court decision addressing abortion rights was leaked finds a marked shift in public attitudes over the past year. After a decade in which Americans' identification as "pro-choice" varied narrowly between 45% and 50%, the percentage has jumped six points to 55% in the latest poll, compared with the prior measure a year ago.

Pro-choice sentiment is now the highest Gallup has measured since 1995 when it was 56% -- the only other time it has been at the current level or higher -- while the 39% identifying as "pro-life" is the lowest since 1996.

From AP/NORC:

 

Pelosi and Communion

Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.

Mica Soellner at The Washington Times :

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will no longer be served Holy Communion in her home city of San Francisco due to her stance supporting abortion, the church announced Friday.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone made the announcement, notifying the California Democrat that her views on reproductive rights are not in line with the Catholic Church.

“A Catholic legislator who supports procured abortion, after knowing the teaching of the Church, commits a manifestly grave sin which is a cause of most serious scandal to others. Therefore, universal Church law provides that such persons ‘are not to be admitted to Holy Communion,’” Archbishop Cordileone wrote to Mrs. Pelosi.

Religion and Abortion Opinion

Survey Center on American Life:

.The Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 50-year-old ruling that legalized the right to abortion in the U.S. But Americans consistently show support for legal abortion in at least some circumstances. A majority (56 percent) of the public says abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Approximately four in 10 (41 percent) say it should be illegal. Notably only one in 10 (11 percent) Americans say abortion should be illegal without any exception.

Views differ significantly across religious traditions, but few religious groups oppose the legal right to an abortion. White evangelical Protestants register the strongest opposition to legal abortion. Seventy-eight percent of White evangelical Protestants say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. Only 20 percent say abortion should be legal. A majority (55 percent) of Hispanic Catholics also believe abortion should be illegal. In contrast, a majority of White Catholics (56 percent), White mainline Protestants (59 percent), and Black Protestants (65 percent) say abortion should be legal. No group more strongly supports the legal right to abortion than religiously unaffiliated Americans—86 percent say it should be legal in at least most cases.

Abortion in Comparative Context

Abortion is becoming a much more salient political isssue.

By Miriam Berger at WP:

The leaked document indicating that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade included a claim often repeated by antiabortion advocates: that abortion rules in the United States are among the world’s most permissive.

While that is technically the case, there is much more to the story in practice.

A Mississippi law banning most abortions beyond 15 weeks of pregnancy is before the court. At the time the state set that limit in 2018, only six countries besides the United States “permit[ted] nontherapeutic or elective abortion-on-demand after the twentieth week of gestation,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in his draft opinion, quoting findings by the Mississippi state legislature.

In a footnote, Alito cites research by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, which opposes abortion rights, and a 2017 Washington Post article. He notes that two more countries have since joined that group, citing the Center for Reproductive Rights, which advocates for expanded abortion access. The list: Canada, China, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, the Netherlands, North Korea, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam.

The Post article cited in the document, and other Post reporting published more recently, found that few countries allow abortion beyond 15 weeks without restriction — but that many, especially in Europe, permit abortions beyond that cutoff under a wide range of exceptions, including mental health and economic hardship. In the United States, on the other hand, many people do not have access to abortion at any stage, due to the absence of clinics under restrictive state laws.

The world map remains murky when it comes to how countries regulate abortions beyond the first trimester of pregnancy. Overall, the global trend is shifting toward the liberalization of abortion laws, rather than the addition of restrictions.

Alito's 1985 Job Application

In 1985, Samuel Alito applied to be Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Attorney General Edwin Meese during the Reagan Administration.  This statement is from his application:

I am and always have been a conservative and an adherent to the same philosophical views that I believe are central to this Administration. It is obviously very difficult to summarize a set of political views in a sentence but, in capsule form, I believe very strongly in limited government, federalism, free enterprise, the supremacy of the elected branches of government, the need for a strong defense and effective law enforcement, and the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values. In the field of law, I disagree strenuously with the usurpation by the judiciary of decisionmaking authority that should be exercised by the branches of government responsible to the electorate. The Administration has already made major strides toward reversing this trend through its judicial · appointments, litigation, and public debate, and it is my hope that even greater advances can be achieved during the second term, especially with Attorney General Meese's leadership at the Department of Justice.

When I first became interested in government and politics during the 1960s, the greatest influences on my views were the writings of William F. Buckley, Jr., the National Review, and Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign. In college, I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause, and reapportionment. I discovered the writings of Alexander Bickel advocating judicial restraint, and it was largely for this reason that I decided to go to Yale Law School.

After graduation from law school, completion of my ROTC military commitment, and a judicial clerkship, I joined the U.S. Attorney's office in New Jersey, principally because of my strong views regarding law enforcement. Most recently, it has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan's administration and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly. I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.

As a federal employee subject to the Hatch Act for nearly a decade, I have been unable to take a role in partisan politics. However, I am a life-long registered Republican and have made the sort of modest political contributions that a federal employee can afford to Republican candidates and conservative causes, including the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, Rep. Christopher Smith (4th Dist. N.J.), Rep. James Courter (12th Dist. N.J.), Governor Thomas Kean of N.J., and Jeff Bell's 1982 Senate primary campaign in N.J. I am a member of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and a regular participant at its luncheon meetings and a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton University, a conservative alumni group. During the past year, I have submitted articles for publication in the National Review and the American Spectator.  

Abortion Opinion

 Alison Durkee at Forbes:

Broad support for abortion rights: Gallup polls show Americans’ support for abortion in all or most cases at 80% in May 2021, only sightly higher than in 1975 (76%), and the Pew Research Center finds 59% of adults believe abortion should be legal, compared to 60% in 1995—though there has been fluctuation, with support dropping to a low of 47% in 2009.

The share of Americans in Gallup’s poll who say abortion is morally acceptable reached a record high of 47% in May, up from a low of 36% in 2009, and a Quinnipiac poll found support for abortion being legal in all or most cases reached a near-record high in September with 63% support.

Steady support for Roe: Support for the Supreme Court’s abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade is similar, with a November Quinnipiac poll finding that 63% agree with the court’s ruling; and 72% of respondents in a January Marquette Law School poll and 69% of January CNN poll respondents oppose it being overturned.

If Roe is overturned: A January CNN poll found a 59% majority want their state to have laws that are “more permissive than restrictive” on abortion if Roe goes away, while only 20% want their state to ban abortion entirely (another 20% want it to be restricted but not banned).

Strongest support for abortion—within limits: An Associated Press/NORC poll in June found 87% support abortion when the woman’s life is in danger, 84% support exceptions in the case of rape or incest, and 74% support abortion if the child would be born with a life-threatening illness.

When abortion support drops: The further into the pregnancy, with AP/NORC finding 61% believe abortion should be legal during the first trimester, but only 34% in the second trimester and 19% in the third, and an April Wall Street Journal poll finding more Americans approve of 15-week abortion bans than disapprove.

Partisan split—but not in all cases: Democrats are statistically far more likely to support abortion rights than Republicans, with Quinnipiac finding in September that only 39% of Republicans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases versus 89% of Democrats—though 70% and 76% of Republicans support exceptions for rape and incest and when the mother’s life is at risk, respectively.

The religious support abortion rights—except for White evangelicals: Pew found Americans with religious affiliations are far more likely to oppose abortion than the nonreligious (82% of whom believe abortion should be legal), but with the exception of white evangelical Protestants (77% of whom believe abortion should be illegal), a higher share of every religious group polled—white non-evangelicals, Black Protestants and Catholics—favor abortion rights.

Gender split—not as big as you might think: Women are slightly more likely to support abortion than men, with Pew finding 62% of women want abortion to be legal versus 56% of men.

Asian Americans most supportive: Pew’s polling found majorities of every race support abortion being legal, though support was higher among Black (67% believe should be legal) and Asian (68%) respondents than those who are white and Hispanic (57% and 58%, respectively).

Support drops with age: The Pew poll found support for abortion highest among those ages 18-29 (67% believe should be legal), compared with 61% of those 30-49, 53% of those ages 50-64 and 55% of those ages 65 and up.

Support increases with more education: Pew found 68% of college grads want it legalized versus 61% of those with some college and 50% with a high school education or less (a Washington Post/ABC poll found a similar correlation).

Parents less likely to support abortion rights: All In Together’s poll, conducted in September with Lake Research and Emerson College Polling, found 36% of those with children in their house opposed the Texas near-total abortion ban versus 54.9% without kids, and the Post/ABC poll similarly found 58% of parents want the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade versus 62% of non-parents.

Cities support more: Those in the Northeast are the most supportive of abortion rights, with the Post/ABC finding 71% there want Roe v. Wade to be upheld versus 58% in the Midwest, 53% in the South and 66% in the West, and urban residents are more likely to support Roe v. Wade (with 69% support) than those in suburban or rural areas (56% and 57%, respectively).

Support rises with income level: The Post/ABC poll found 59% of those earning less than $50,000 per year wanting the court to uphold the law versus 62% of those making between $50,000-$100,000 and 65% of those earning more than $100,000.

Russia, America, and Decadence

James Pethokoukis:

Russians framing the West as decadent precedes Putin, of course, with the claim being a staple of Soviet propaganda — though the focus then was more about materialism rather than morals. But after the Cold War, however, the charge seems anachronistic and ham-handed as propaganda. Even on its own terms, the charge doesn’t work — unless all that Putin quote means is that the Russian government will persecute LGBT Russians.

For example: Compared to America, Russia has a lower birth rate, higher abortion rate, and lower church attendance — presumably key decadence metrics to conservative Christians in the US who might be sympathetic to the decadence claim. And as I note in the piece of Russian pessimism, a 2019 poll of young Muscovites finds that they imagine their lives on only a roughly two-year time horizon and have little hope for the economy and a well-governed nation.

In many ways, Russia just can’t seem to put it all together: Despite vast natural resources, a well-educated population, a deep scientific base, and an economy long freed from the heavy shackles of communist central planning, Russian income has fallen further behind the West. It possesses a political economy where “corruption and impunity are pervasive.”

Opinion on Abortion

 Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

Since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, pollsters have asked hundreds of questions about abortion. This AEI Public Opinion Study brings many of these questions together in one place. It updates earlier AEI studies on the subject, and it focuses on trends.

Opinion has moved within a narrow range in the nearly 50 years since Roe was decided. Between 1975 and 2021, Gallup has asked the identical three-part question on the legality of abortion more than 55 times. Opinion bulks in the middle, with 54 percent saying abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances in 1975 and 48 percent giving that response in its latest poll from May 2021. Of the remainder, 21 percent in 1975 and 32 percent in 2021 said it should be legal under all circumstances. Twenty-two percent said it should be illegal in all circumstances in 1975; 19 percent gave that response in Gallup’s 2021 question.

Several organizations ask a four-part question. In a 2004 Quinnipiac University poll, 20 percent said abortion should be legal in all cases, 35 percent legal in most cases, 26 percent illegal in most cases, and 14 percent illegal in all. In its early September 2021 poll, taken after the Supreme Court denied an emergency request to block the Texas fetal heartbeat law, those responses were 31, 31, 21, and 11 percent, respectively. The other organizations that ask this iden­tical four-part question find that support for legal abortion in all cases has risen slightly, while the view that it should be illegal in all cases has dropped slightly.

Opinion about abortion is complex. Americans appear to be simultaneously pro-life and pro-choice. Significant numbers of people say abortion is an act of murder. They also say that the decision to have an abortion should be a personal choice. These are contradictory sentiments, yet many people hold them at the same time. Many see no reason to resolve the tensions in these positions. They believe in the sanctity of life and the importance of individual choice.

Most Americans do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. They are, however, willing to put some restrictions on abortion’s use. Although the questions are not asked regularly, majorities of Americans favor notifica­tion of partners, parental consent for a teenager seeking an abortion, and 24-hour waiting periods. They say abortion should be generally legal in the first trimester but oppose it in the second and third trimesters. These opinions regard­ing restrictions highlight the nuanced nature of American public opinion on abortion.

SCOTUS Approval

 Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup:

Americans' opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court have worsened, with 40%, down from 49% in July, saying they approve of the job the high court is doing. This represents, by two percentage points, a new low in Gallup's trend, which dates back to 2000. The poll was conducted shortly after the Supreme Court declined to block a controversial Texas abortion law. In August, the court similarly allowed college vaccine mandates to proceed and rejected a Biden administration attempt to extend a federal moratorium on evictions during the pandemic.

Death Penalty Opinion, Mid-2020

Megan Brenan at Gallup:

A record-low 54% of Americans consider the death penalty to be morally acceptable, marking a six-percentage-point decrease since last year. This finding, from Gallup's May 1-13 Values and Beliefs poll, is in line with polling last fall that showed decreased public support for the death penalty and a record-high preference for life imprisonment over the death penalty as a better punishment for murder.

Gallup has measured Americans' beliefs about the moral acceptability of the death penalty and numerous other social issues each May since 2001.

This year, 40% of U.S. adults think the death penalty is morally wrong, the highest in Gallup's 20-year trend. The high point in the public's belief that the death penalty is morally acceptable, 71%, was in 2006. That year and again in 2007, it topped the list of issues rated for moral acceptability.

The latest decrease in the public's tolerance for the death penalty is largely owed to political liberals and moderates. While two-thirds of conservatives still consider it to be morally acceptable, moderates (56%) and liberals (37%) are at their lowest levels since 2001.

...
Just as views of the death penalty are sharply divided depending on Americans' ideological identification, so too are many of the other issues measured. Abortion remains the most ideologically polarizing issue asked about, with 70% of liberals and 18% of conservatives classifying it as morally acceptable. Gay or lesbian relations and teenage sex are the next most divisive issues, with acceptability gaps of 41 and 40 percentage points, respectively.