Uncommon Commentary #368: Poll Results that Get the Gall Up (Part Two)

In our judicial system, courts are under obligation to follow precedent (i.e., previous rulings on the same subject), even when the precedent is wrong, as it was in the case of Roe v. Wade and that of the accompanying Doe v. Bolton; this makes it extremely unlikely that those decisions will ever be overturned, and, consequently, extremely likely that any laws that do more than regulate the inducing of abortion (and even many of those that do only that) will be invalidated by the courts.  Very recently, a judge indeed blocked a North Dakota "fetal heartbeat" law from going into effect at the beginning of August, writing that the legislation is unconstitutional "based on the United States [sic] Supreme Court precedent in Roe v. Wade from 1973 ... and the progeny of cases that have followed."  Since our highest judicial authority has held that the US Constitution guarantees a right to murder unborn children, the one foreseeable way in which the inducing of abortion could be made illegal in the USA would be to amend the US Constitution—but, Gallup has made surveys on this subject also, asking people whether they support "a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in all circumstances, except when necessary to save the life of the mother".  As you can see from the results reproduced below, opinion has trended in precisely the wrong direction; the sole hope for anti-foeticidists is that opinion has reversed over the eight years since the latest poll was taken.

	Favor	Oppose	No opinion
	%	%	%
2005 Nov 11-13	37	61	2
2003 Jan 10-12	38	59	3
1996 Jul 25-28	38	59	3
1992 Jan 16-19	42	56	2
1984	50	46	4

Opposition to induced abortion has always been most pronounced among religious persons, who also tend to be the most fervent supporters of what we call "American democracy".  I wonder, therefore, whether it ever occurs to my fellow pro-lifers that, were this country not a "democracy" (accurately, a republic with near-universal adult suffrage), foeticide could have been outlawed decades ago, and that, so long as we are a "democracy", it almost unquestionably will never be outlawed.  I'm not advocating overthrow of the government; I just challenge people to stop being so smugly conventional, and think about whether that government is really so wonderful as everyone assumes it to be.