Smart Americans are pro-choice

This table, like the previous ones, encompasses the years 2006-2010 and shows the respondants who say yes that a pregnant woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if "the woman wants it for any reason." As I point out again, the wording of this question makes Americans seem less pro-choice than they really are because repondants who think that abortion should generally be legal for most reasons (but not any) get grouped with the "no" respondants.

The Wordsum score is the number of answers the respondant gets correct on a 10-question vocabulary test and it has a good correlation with IQ.

As we see, there is a strong correlation between being smart and being pro-choice. Republicans, by being anti-abortion, are marking themselves as the party of stupid. Because smart people control the media, this is a bad place for Republicans.

Frequency Distribution
Cells contain: -Row percent -Weighted N		ABANY
		1 YES	2 NO	ROW TOTAL
WORDSUM	0	13.6 1.8	86.4 11.4	100.0 13.2
	1	32.3 9.2	67.7 19.2	100.0 28.4
	2	26.5 17.9	73.5 49.7	100.0 67.6
	3	29.5 30.8	70.5 73.5	100.0 104.3
	4	29.4 56.0	70.6 134.7	100.0 190.7
	5	35.0 126.2	65.0 234.7	100.0 360.8
	6	39.6 195.7	60.4 298.4	100.0 494.0
	7	41.5 159.5	58.5 224.5	100.0 384.1
	8	42.7 101.5	57.3 136.3	100.0 237.7
	9	53.2 80.7	46.8 71.1	100.0 151.8
	10	58.1 36.8	41.9 26.5	100.0 63.3
	COL TOTAL	38.9 816.1	61.1 1,279.9	100.0 2,096.0

Comments

[anonymous]

That's awesome, but what are the Republicans going to do about it?

Their stance on abortion is already very mild, and no matter what it is in reality, the democrat controlled media will say it's extremist.

The GOP is fucked unless they figure out a way to counter the democrat media advantage (and the democrat vote fraud)

[HS: Republicans should give up and become libertarian on this issue. Let people decide for themselves, not the government. Pro choice means no one is forced to have an abortion, but no one is put in jail by government agents with guns if they have one or perform one.]

[RandyB]

The Republican position on abortion comes from the same people who read the material in "family" bookstores on Creationism, the Second Coming and theocratic interpretation of the Constitution. It's not hard to tar their philosophy as based on willful ignorance.

[not a hacker]

Now, by 'pro-choice', do you mean returning the issue to the people in each respective state, or do you mean let's enshrine the current judicially-determined vector? Because, you do believe in women having personal responsibility right?

[HS: Anti-abortion people don't want states' rights, they want abortion to be illegal everywhere. ]

[Alex]

[HS: Anti-abortion people don't want states' rights, they want abortion to be illegal everywhere. ]

Indeed.

Abortion, like all moral and ideological issues, is totalitarian by definition. The winners in the public debate will always want to impose their convictions on everyone, if not the entire world, because they feel it's their duty to fight evil outside of their neighborhood too.

Only Aspergy libertarians and conservatives get whipped up about "State rights".

Smart people know that society doesn't work that way. The Civil War is the perfect example.

[John]

@anonymous: "Their stance on abortion is already very mild, and no matter what it is in reality, the democrat controlled media will say it's extremist."

I call bullshit.

How can you describe the Republican stance on abortion as "mild"? In comparison to what?

By my definition, any policy that involves armed agents of the government forcing women to remain pregnant against their will IS extremist. Whether the government agents carry a state or federal badge doesn't change my opinion.

[Galvani's Frog Dance Theatre's Orchestra Conductor]

If you did the same crosstab on the question of HBD I bet you'd find that fewer smart people believe it's true. Smart people often believe stupid things.

By the way, there is a lot of talk coming from the left about how the GOP is the party of creationists. However I wonder who believe in creationism more, the Republicans or the Democrat-voting minorities. I would bet more minorities are creationists. I tried to retrieve the data myself (I even found the variable that corresponds with creationism -- scitest4 : HUMANS EVOLVED FROM ANIMALS) but I am a complete noob at crosstabbing.

[HS: You are correct about the correlation between denial of in HBD and IQ. People with high IQ are more aware of the politically correct answers to poll questions.]

[anonymous]

@ John

"armed agents" Hello aspergery libertarian nerd.

In comparison to the Democrats who want taxpayer funded abortion in the 9th month, and even partial-birth abortions (where they let the head out of the vagina and then kill it), or who say that notifying a 13yo girl's parents of her abortion ought to be a crime.

[HS: Pregnant 13 yo's SHOULD get abortions. The alternative is that they never have a career and no one will want to marry them and the live off welfare until the kid is 18. And maybe some other male kid gets sued for child support and his life is also ruined. Parental notification could scare or prevent 13yos from doing the right thing.]

[chesswife]

Some of the smartest people I know are pro-life. Maybe it's because I've hung around conservative Catholic circles and they tend to be hyper-educated (Mel Gibson notwithstanding).

[MC]

"HS: Anti-abortion people don't want states' rights, they want abortion to be illegal everywhere."

I know you're generalizing, but a position that Roe should be overturned is effectively the states' rights position. While it may not be a majority position, it's a pretty substantial number on the right, and the one that attracts the most moderates who don't like baby murder factories on every block.

"HS: You are correct about the correlation between denial of in HBD and IQ. People with high IQ are more aware of the politically correct answers to poll questions."

HBD is important to you, which is why you stand by it despite its unpopularity. That's the way it is for those of us with 99% test scores who nonetheless can't countenance the wholesale murder of the innocent.

[HS: HBD is scientific fact, and denying it is illogical. Whether or not abortion is immoral is pure opinion and not science. 99% of anti-abortion people who say "states rights" don't truly care about states rights, they are just glomming onto something that gets them what they want which is Roe overturned. What they really want is to make abortion illegal everywhere. And the SCT doesn't recognize states rights, and as soon as Roe is overturned, Congress could the next day make it illegal everywhere.]

[J1]

The higher the perceived personal cost of unwanted pregnancy, the greater the support for abortion rights. No surprise there.

"as soon as Roe is overturned, Congress could the next day make it illegal everywhere"

That isn't going to happen. There's almost no support in this country for a blanket prohibition.

[Insider]

'conservatives get whipped up about "State rights"

False. Conservatives get whipped up about State's Rights in the same way that racists get whipped up about HBD --- means to an end, nothing more. Libertarians are the only group that gets riled up about abstract, ideological principles for the sake of those same principles.

Also, libertarians run into a wall on the issue anyway. What difference does it make whether the 'electorate' can vote to prohibit or condone conduct? Either you believe a governmental entity---state or federal---should have the power to intervene in a certain affair, abortion in this case, or you don't. Hiding behind 'oh no, we just want the states to decide' is even sillier coming from a libertarian.

In fact, libertarians who believe in HBD should favor free birth control and free abortions. The sexual market will guide itself to produce less bad apples. In the future, a child should -only- be the product of a concerted choice made by the parents.

[Disgruntled]

The Republican party is anti-abortion in theory but not in practice. However, I don't think they can flank the Democrats on this issue by becoming libertarian on abortion. Many people are pro-abortion, like HS is, in that they want tax money to subsidize abortions. This forces anti-abortion people to be complicit in what they consider to be murder. I'm not sure that the Republican party will gain more voters than it loses by trying to find a balance between the Democrats (pro-abortion) and anti-abortion foes who consider it murder.

[MC]

"HBD is scientific fact, and denying it is illogical. Whether or not abortion is immoral is pure opinion and not science."

If you thought HBD were unimportant, scientifically correct though it may be, you would tell conservatives not to talk about it, right? Because what's the point of losing elections over something unimportant? The difference is in the importance you ascribe to those issues, not whether being anti-HBD or anti-abortion is "logical" or "scientific".

For the record, banning the murder of 40-week-old children and not 38-week-old children is as utterly illogical and unscientific as refusing to believe in IQ differences among humans.

[MC]

"Pregnant 13 yo's SHOULD get abortions. The alternative is that they never have a career and no one will want to marry them and the live off welfare until the kid is 18."

The other alternative is that they put the baby up for adoption with a nice Mormon family, get married, have their own children, and then live to see the baby they gave up attend Yale. Which is exactly what happened to my sister. An outlier no doubt, but still...

[HS: It's EXTREMELY RARE that women give up their babies for adoption. It's talked about by Christians but in reality it practically never happens.]

[chucho]

I guess the point of all this is that you think if the GOP goes pro-choice, they'll gain voters? Pass that spliff over, mon.

Liberalism, as believed by Smart-Educated-Rich Americans, is a religion. Religions have enemies, aka non-believers. The GOP are the non-believers. It doesn't matter what their stance on abortion is.

[John]

@anonymous: "Hello aspergery libertarian nerd."

Hey! I resemble that remark! :-)

[Some Guy]

Smart Americans are leftist socialistic statists, too? Are you trying to imply something?

[CamelCaseRob]

The Tea Party was created to address economic issues only, but the Left quickly painted it as being racist and socially conservative because they know they having a winning issue with that and not so much with economics. I think it would be next to impossible to convert the image of the Republican Party to socially liberal because the leftist media wouldn't let that happen. The Repubs would probably have to nominate only pro-choice women for several election cycles, and that's not going to happen.

[Bill]

We should be far far more concerned about the deaths of unambiguous persons with... personalities, thoughts, feelings, experiences, dreams, etc. I'm not going to declare a fetus a non-person, but the idea that there a single point where sex cells become a full person is a semiotic or metaphysical concept, not a biological one. Nobody likes the reality of aborting fetuses but there are broader societal reasons to allow it.

Unfortunately though, the single-mindedness of "sanctity of life" activists makes them unable to apply the same concept to other aspects of society. For instance, why does Venn diagram of anti-war and anti-abortion activists looks like a pair of binoculars? There again, U.S. policy is responsible for regular people having their lives snuffed out (in huge numbers!) because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet our top concern must be making sure no woman can abort a fetus to save themselves and society from a lifetime of underclass misery or crippling defects. Because life is sacred.

[anonymous]

@John: Everyone thinks life deserves protection at some point in development its just an argument about when. Its ridiculous to suggest that not allowing abortion at 5 months is some kind of tyrannical government overreach but banning it at 7 months is OK. Its the same as with gun control where every reasonable person thinks there should be SOME limit on which weapons should be allowed. In both cases its ridiculous to pretend that your line in the sand is the only reasonable one.

"Pro choice" is really a feminist pro woman's choice position. As long as you are just imagining things there are other options that would fit in more with HBD. One would be that abortion should be default and a woman should only be allowed to give birth if both she and the father want the child. That way we can assure that all children brought into the world are actually wanted by parents who feel like the can provide for them. This seems a lot more laudable goal than giving women the right to prevent stretch marks (e.g. control over her body)

[Alex]

"We should be far far more concerned about the deaths of unambiguous persons with... personalities, thoughts, feelings, experiences, dreams, etc. I'm not going to declare a fetus a non-person, but the idea that there a single point where sex cells become a full person is a semiotic or metaphysical concept, not a biological one. Nobody likes the reality of aborting fetuses but there are broader societal reasons to allow it."

You are correct in the observation that the death of an old scientist is more of a tragedy for humanity and the world than the death of a baby who hasn't yet begun to even think.

I am personally opposed to abortion because it desanctifies life, encourages nihilist attitudes, and scars emotionally the aborting woman (it is sociobiological; no amount of "feel-good" talk will alleviate the shame a woman feels after aborting).

I am a prometheist progressive (I believe paradise on Earth can be achieved through genetics and technology rather than social activism), and despite this I think abortion should not exist. I am more in favor of invitro fecundation and genetic engineering (which is tantamount to prophylaxis).

[MC]

HS:

You know that abortion was very, very common pre-Roe, right?

And if you actually knew any serious Christians, you would have met lots if people who adopt, even if they have to go outside the US to do it.

[MC]

I mean •adoption• was very common pre-Roe.

[thordaddy]

A "pro-choicer" is one who believes that their mother had a "fundamental right" to kill them in utero.

Ergo, a "pro-choicer" is a de facto self-annihilator.

So 1/2sigma, please enlighten us lesser intelligences as to how EXACTLY it is that the self-annihilating ethos of the "pro-choicer" correlates with higher intelligence?

[HAR]

"The Republican party is anti-abortion in theory but not in practice. "

While it's often seen as cool to blow off the parties as exactly the same, saying the Republicans are only "anti-abortion in theory but not in practice" is patently false.

From NPR:

"That's the central finding of the midyear report from the Guttmacher Institute, the reproductive policy research group that keeps track of such things.

There were 39 laws restricting abortion enacted in the first half of 2012. While that's less than half the 80 put in place during the first half of last year, the number of laws already on the books for 2012 is higher than any other year before 2011."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/07/12/156683431/state-legislatures-stay-busy-on-abortion-laws

The Mississippi state legislature has been trying to close down the only abortion clinic in the state

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/11/us/mississippi-abortion-clinic-hearing/index.html

No wonder smart people don't want to be associated with the Republican party.

[Alcibiades]

"Because smart people control the media, this is a bad place for Republicans."

This is only true if by "smart people" you mean social liberals. The media is also controlled by individuals subservient to plutocracy and, unfortunately, we already have a social liberal/plutocrat party. If the Republicans ceased to be the social conservative/plutocrat party, why would they have cause to exist?

[s l mccoy]

The pro-choice person who believes that his/her mother had a "fundamental right" not to continue a pregnancy with him/her is not a self-annihilator. Rather, such a person is not selfish enough and narcissistic enough to believe that his/her life was owed to him/her simply because his/her mother had voluntary or involuntary sexual intercourse. Such a person is grateful to his/her mother for choosing to bring him/her into the world. That does not necessarily correlate with higher intelligence, but it does correlate with greater courtesy, less selfishness, and much more modesty. Those are virtues associated with greater dispassion, so I'm betting that, on a probability basis, they may well associated with higher intelligence.

[Anonymouse]

Many of you people don't understand. Abortion is not fundamentally a question of whether *you* would be okay with aborting your own/your partner's pregnancy. It is a question whether you accept that it's the best option for poor, young, impulsive women who are not emotionally or financially capable of raising a child. Overturning Roe V. Wade would definitely strain social services. And since we all believe in HBD can we stop acting like adoption is a magic solution?

[thordaddy]

s l mccoy says,

"The pro-choice person who believes that his/her mother had a "fundamental right" not to continue a pregnancy with him/her is not a self-annihilator."

Your language is not very precise.

The "fundamental right" of your mother "not to continue" YOUR gestation IS the "fundamental right" to KILL YOU in utero.

IF YOU BELIEVE that you mother had a "fundamental right" to kill you in utero then you are a de facto self-annihilator AND a "pro-choicer."

There is no way around this and there is no way one could claim that this degenerate state of mind could be correlated with high intelligence.

In fact, telling yourself that you are "grateful" that your mother didn't kill you in utero when it would have been PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE AND GOOD to do so is actually evidence of a very degraded and suspect mental capacity.

[HS: Is it really any different than if your mother was on the pill or your father was wearing a condom? Is wearing a condom like murder?

Or if your mother never even had sex? Do women have some obligation to have sex as much as possible so they can give birth as much as possible?]

[HAR]

[HS: Is it really any different than if your mother was on the pill or your father was wearing a condom? Is wearing a condom like murder?

Or if your mother never even had sex? Do women have some obligation to have sex as much as possible so they can give birth as much as possible?]

Lol, very true. There's a lot of stuff that could've happened that could've prevented you from being born. It's not all "murder."

As a utilitarian, I oppose granting the right to murder other people because such a prohibition makes us all better off. A might want to kill B, and B might want to kill A, but both A and B would rather have their right to life protected than indulge their murderous wishes. Therefore, in Hobbesian terms, they give the state the right to monopolize the use of force.

What similar advantage does society gain from protecting a fetus? A fetus can't kill a non-fetus, and a fetus does not sit around and worry that it's going to be killed because society won't protect it. Unlike A or B, it won't change its behavior based on what the law is.

Thus, even setting aside eugenic arguments, there is no rational reason for protecting a fetus.

[thordaddy]

HalfSigma,

Your implication is that a "belief in abortion" indicates higher intelligence.

But if it can be shown that a "belief in abortion" is equal to a belief in self-annihilation then we can reasonably conclude that a "belief in abortion" IS NOT a mark of higher intelligence.

Of course, a "belief in abortion" can most particularly be defined as one who believes that THEIR mother had a "fundamental right" to kill them in utero. De facto self-annihilator.

Because exercising one's "fundamental right" IS A GOOD THING then if it were to be done all over again the "believer in abortion" would demand the "good thing," i.e., his abortion.

This is a self-evidently pathological mindset. This mindset, in no way, indicates higher intelligence. In fact, it indicates degraded intelligence. Rank nihilism CANNOT be the mark of higher intelligence. That's nonsensical.

If one were to simply reject the above statement concerning the definition of "believing in abortion" then one would simply be claiming to NOT believe in abortion.

[thordaddy]

"Smart Americans are pro-choice"

This title is not a statement of fact. Rather, it is a statement of HalfSigma's belief.

He believes smart Americans are "pro-choice" and does not see the pure self-evident nonsense of a statement that literally translates, "Smart Americans are pro-choice BECAUSE they believe in self-annihilation."

No HalfSigma...

Smart Americans are not self-annihilators. Utterly nonsensical.

Which brings us to another question.

Is it even smart to claim a belief in abortion when one now understands that such belief evidences a subconscious pathological and self-annihilating ethos that asserts a mother's "fundamental right" to have killed her son in utero AND such exercise of a "fundamental right" would have been a "good thing?"

The abortionist's only real escape is to not delve to deep into a subconscious that has an unspoken consensus at its back.

This is certainly no mark of intelligence. It is a mark of degraded intelligence.

Is it smart to assert one's subconscious embrace of self-annihilation?

[rob]

...Posted by: thordaddy

You believe reduckulously silly things.

Your momma certainly had a "fundamental right" to kill you after birth: pick up a rock, bring it down real fast upon ye head. Are you glad your mom had hands?

[thordaddy]

rob says,

"Your momma certainly had a "fundamental right" to kill you after birth: pick up a rock, bring it down real fast upon ye head."

This is where HBD self-annihilates, certainly.

[rob]

Did your mom have hands? Does that make you a self-annihlator? Depending on when and where you were born, abortion might've been legal, you were born. Self-annhilating yet?

[Mark]

I live in the whitest and most middle class county in Indiana, Hamilton county. These people are the natural base of the Republican party and the votes from this county often put statewide Republican candidates over the top in elections. The Republican candidate for Senator here, Mourdock, made a stupid remark involving rape and abortion and ended up losing the election because of getting a lot fewer votes in this county than Republicans normally get. There was a lot of ticket splitting so people here could avoid voting for him. If the Republican party wants a middle class base (and they need it to win), then they need to avoid this kind of extremist pro-life candidate.

[thordaddy]

rob,

You are showing the foulness of the HBD paradigm and its conclusion that "Smart Americans are pro-choice."

We understand that mothers may kill their children in utero or after birth. We understand that they have had this capability since the beginning. We also understand that we have "legalized" a mother killing her child in utero. This ACT is called "abortion." And a "belief in abortion" is a belief in the goodness of this ACT. It is ONLY because this ACT IS EXECUTED that you even feign a "belief" in it.

So when a prominent HBDer says that "Smart Americans are pro-choice," he is saying that smart Americans BELIEVE that a mother has a "fundamental right" to kill her child in utero. This "fundamental right" is a cobbling together of the brute fact of historical mother/child murder with its "legal" acceptance from conception up until right before birth. The "fundamental right" brushes right up against infanticide. Your own line of "reasoning" will have you accept the inevitable legalization of this brute fact of life (mother murdering child).

As an HBDer and one who asserts human biodiversity by way of this perverted first law of nature, what shall we call you?

If the first "law of nature" and thus the origin of HBD is thy mother has a "fundamental right" to have killed me in utero, then what shall we call you?

I call you a self-annihilator.

[Joseph Hertzlinger]

We may see a reversal when a pre-natal test for Asperger's is developed.

[Joseph Hertzlinger]

I noticed this is much weaker than the last two correlations.

[nebbish]

Hertzlinger's comment was probably tongue-in-cheek, but here's a serious reply anyway. A pre-natal test for Asperger's is far away. Asperger's is almost certainly not a straightforward chromosomal or single-gene abnormality.