Has abortion role been overblown in U.S. healthcare debate?
A new poll by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that concern about federal funding for abortion is very low on the list of factors driving opposition to President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul America’s healthcare system.
The results of the poll, released on Thursday, show that just 3 percent of healthcare opponents cited abortion funding as their main reason for opposing congressional healthcare proposals.
The biggest reasons, cited by 27 percent of respondents to an open-ended question about their opposition, were that the overhaul would be too expensive and lead to higher deficits and taxes. Another 27 percent said they did not want government involvement in healthcare.
The nationwide poll of more than 1,000 Americans was conducted from Nov. 12 to 15.
The poll’s publication comes as the U.S. Senate prepares to begin debate on its version of a healthcare bill that does not include language approved earlier this month by the House that would strengthen the existing prohibition on using federal funds for abortion.
Many analysts say the abortion issue — which has been fanned by conservative evangelicals associated with the Republican Party and Catholic clergy whose flock lean to the Democratic Party — threatens to unravel Obama’s top domestic priority.
McCain, Palin doing less well with younger evangelicals
DALLAS – Republican presidential contender John McCain still retains strong support from white evangelical Protestants, but the 72-year-old Arizona senator’s appeal fades with younger voters from this flock.
That is the findings of a survey that was just done for Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.
It found that McCain has the support of 71 percent of white evangelical Christians versus 23 percent for his Democratic rival Barack Obama.
But the numbers narrow somewhat for evangelicals under the age of 30, to 62 percent for McCain to 30 percent for Obama.
McCain has solidified his support with this important component of the Republican base with his choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin – a staunch conservative Christian and mother of six — as his running mate.
But the survey found that while older white evangelical women were among Palin’s most ardent supporters, women below 30 from that group were far less enthusiastic about her.
Date:Wed Oct 1,2008
Time:10:13PM
Reponse to yes4me…
I read you’re comment about me and the article I wrote. I’m assuming that you didn’t like the article because, it wasn’t proof read well enough for you. Perhap’s, that’s good thing, because, the way I see it, writting to stems more conversation just as, does text messaging from cells phones, which you never read by the way.
“Moving On” Barack’s fund raiser concert set for october sometime.
I have a question for our readers of all ages…What does Barack Obama, & Buce SpringSting & Bill Joel have in commen ? “Nothing” but, after the concert Obama want’s you’re vote anyway.
Sincerely,
Emmery Jones Jr
Health Informaiton Consultant CCS-P
Graduate: William Rainey Harper College
Witchgate? Another day, another Palin video …
DALLAS – Another day, another video showing Sarah Palin in church.
The latest Palin You Tube video to show up on the Internet features grainy footage of John McCain’s vice presidential running mate receiving a blessing against witchcraft in a Pentecostal church in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska.
You can see the video here. Palin says nothing in it and keeps her head bowed throughout the blessing that was reportedly given by a Kenyan pastor and witch hunter.
The video, like a previous one in which Palin tells a congregation that U.S. troops in Iraq were on a “task from God,” has been widely reported and commented on. It reportedly was made in 2005 before she was elected governor of Alaska. It began circulating on the Internet this week.
Palin is an evangelical who has ignited the Republican Party’s conservative Christian base. But incidents such as this one have raised eyebrows in some quarters, especially among foreign media covering the U.S. campaign in the run-up to the Nov. 4 election between McCain/Palin and Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The online edition of Britain’s Telegraph newspaper said the incident recalled the damaging reports that Obama faced over his links to pastor Jeremiah Wright, who made stridently anti-American sermons.
how can people of the USA trust someone, like Palin
who shows such a lack of judgement.
Witches and Wizards are for kids stories and Palin should grow up, out of her narrow minded small town mentality.
Inside the Tent: Gold star mom
Kristine Fallstone, whose son was killed in an Army training exercise after he spent a year in Iraq, talks to Inside the Tent contributor Kathleen Miller about her support for Barack Obama and her evangelical Christian faith.
Inside the Tent has more than 40 delegates and other attendees in Denver and St. Paul, equipped with video cameras to capture the conventions from the ground up. Miller is not a Reuters employee and any opinions expressed are her own.
Click here for a full list of contributors at the Democratic National Convention. We’ll be moving to St. Paul for the Republican National Convention next week.
Click here for more Inside the Tent contributions.
Click here for more Reuters 2008 election coverage.
Pew’s identification of abortion as the main issue is not an accurate measure of the importance of the issue of abortion to the health care debate. A more accurate measure would be to ask a simple question. Would you support a bill that would have your taxes pay for medicaly unnecessary abortions. I am certian that the majority would vote NO!