You typically see flip flop rulings on issues that half the country actually does not support.
Abortion is probably the biggest issue and that's because a lot of the country does not support it and this has not substantially changed in over 50 years: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
Another contentious issue has been gay marriage but support for that has only risen over the years (although much more slowly), so generally that is another issue that I don't expect much flip flopping on: https://news.gallup.com/poll/506636/sex-marriage-support-hol...
I'm sorry, am I reading the data incorrectly, or your comment incorrectly?
> Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?
> 2023 | 34(any) 51(some) 13(illegal) 2(no opinion)
According these data, the vast, vast majority of Americans support the right to abortion, correct?
before Roe was overturned I would have considered myself pro life because I don't believe in late term abortions, but with the new legal landscape I've become effectively pro choice because the new laws are so extreme that they ban life saving health care that has little to do with the life of the unborn
I wonder how many are like me
I believe there are many, on "both sides."
I deeply appreciate your reply. This is extremely important.
The wording is what it's all about. When we put it into terms like "pro-life"/"pro-choice" - it does nothing to address the hard realities which need to be addressed when writing law.
We all keep getting played by yes/no, right/left, binary word game slogans. The realities are so much more complex.
So something that you'd probably be interested in are the turn away studies.
https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study
The studies ask questions of people seeking abortions who ultimately can't because the law prohibits their abortion (usually because they waited too long).
One interesting finding of this study is that a big reason people wait too long is because getting to an abortion clinic is just too hard. In the Roe world, in some very large states like Texas there were just 1 or 2 abortion clinics for the entire state.
Late term abortions have never really been very common. That's because as you get later in the process, just doing a c section and adoption would generally be the more preferred route. When they do happen, it's pretty much always due to non-viability of the fetus.
And, this isn't directed to you, but another fascinating part of the turn away studies is that it's fairly common for people seeking abortions to be in long term relationships with children. For those people, financially supporting another child isn't really an option and adoption is really socially taboo. (Imagine explaining why you aren't pregnant anymore and why you don't have an infant child).
This is part of the strategy against abortion. Make unreasonably short abortion windows (six weeks is often before many women even determine that they are pregnant) coupled with restrictive regulations designed to make the process as difficult and long as possible including multiple visits and mandatory waiting times. Throw on top of that the attacks on the few places which provide these services and you've got a situation that makes it extremely difficult for anyone not wealthy to get a legal abortion.
> I wonder how many are like me
>I deeply appreciate your reply. This is extremely important.
>The wording is what it's all about. When we put it into terms like "pro-life"/"pro-choice" - it does nothing to address the hard realities which need to be addressed when writing law.
>We all keep getting played by yes/no, right/left, binary word game slogans. The realities are so much more complex.
This settles into a duopoly, with periodic swings depending on macro-level events, as naturally both sides align with a "good" and the other "bad" in an all-relative social moral grandstanding power contest.
90%+ of abortions are essentially birth control.
The moral, social, political, biological, religious, physiological, cultural, and constitutional subjectivity of the matter juxtaposed against the objective nature of (current) (nominal) child-birth is easily the most difficult topic to reach common ground between the most vocal extremes.
All the while, most people agree late-term, medically unnecessary abortions are abhorrent.