May 15, 2009

More Americans pro-life than pro-choice

There is a good news for pro-life people: according to the new Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey, conducted May 7-10, 51% of Americans declare themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion and 42% “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995. The new results represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50% were pro-choice and 44% pro-life.

The shift toward the pro-life position is confirmed in two other surveys, says Gallup:

The same three abortion questions asked on the Gallup Values and Beliefs survey were included in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 12-13, with nearly identical results, including a 50% to 43% pro-life versus pro-choice split on the self-identification question.
Additionally, a recent national survey by the Pew Research Center recorded an eight percentage-point decline since last August in those saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, from 54% to 46%. The percentage saying abortion should be legal in only a few or no cases increased from 41% to 44% over the same period.

It’s also interesting that the percentage of Republicans (or independents who lean Republican) calling themselves pro-life rose by 10 points over the past year, from 60% to 70%, while there has been essentially no change in the views of Democrats (including Democratic leaners). Via All American Blogger.

The normblog Posterity Collection poll

Parthenon and the Achropolis
Imagine that civilization is approaching its possible doom—it’s just a joke, of course, though…—and that someone has been assigned the task of assembling for posterity “a representative collection of the Arts of Humankind, to be preserved in a sealed container so that some future beings of intelligence, discernment and taste can discover it and be impressed.” Well, Norm devised a super-duper, 12-in-one poll and asked the normblog readership to perform the task. Readers, in other words, were to nominate under the following 12 headings those artists whose work they would like to see going into the sealed container [in brackets my own nominations] :

1. Poet [Dante Alighieri]
2. Playwright [William Shakespeare]
3. Novelist [Leo Tolstoj]
4. Composer [J.S. Bach]
5. Jazz musician [Louis Armstrong]
6. Rock or pop star/group [Bob Dylan]
7. Country music ditto [Johnny Cash]
8. Movie director [John Ford]
9. Painter [Giotto]
10. Photographer [none, because of my respect for an art form I haven't yet lived enough life to fully grasp]
11. Sculptor [Michelangelo]
12. Architect [Andrea Palladio]

And here are the “official” results…