Opposition to abortion isn't generally men vs. women

[Sympthsical]

I was listening to Bill Maher's show this morning, and he was reading off some facts about abortion he was unaware of. One of them is that it isn't really men vs. women when it comes to wanting to ban it. I was curious, because my assumptions had been that the numbers between men and women would be fairly different.

I wanted to find polling. However, I wanted to find polling that wasn't affected by recent events, so I looked around for polls from about two years ago. Just to see what people said before the latest Court situation. Here was one example of the breakdown. Other polls yielded similar results:

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So how is opposition being determined? Age, education, and religion.

Why post this? I just want to highlight that women's equality and rights isn't necessarily a battle between the sexes. It isn't racial. It's a battle between equality and conservatism/regressivism. I've spent my whole life working towards LGBT equality, and one of the things I've always kept in mind is that my battle isn't against straight people as a general force. It has always been against religious influences, conservative impulses, and people who simply resist any kind of change.

One of the things that I think the LGBT community has done successfully and what turned a corner over the past 20-30 was how many of us came out. It's hard to be ignorant when we're people you know, your friends and family, your coworkers, the person from church or on your softball team, your doctor or your mechanic.

I think one of the most powerful weapons in our arsenal is when women share their stories.

[wryter2000]

1. Even a selfish man

Doesn’t want to pay child support for 18 years. Besides, most men are good people.

[Karadeniz]

2. Good info!!

[roamer65]

3. I am a man who is in favor of completely unfettered abortion on demand.

8 billion is too many.

Women need to have the choice anywhere in the pregnancy.

[Ilsa]

4. Right, but abortion seems to be a lower priority for men.

I doubt the poll asked them to rate their feelings about how invested they are.

Yes, but the number of pro-choice men at protests has never come close to the number of women. Same thing on Saturdays guarding the clinics. There tended to be a greater number of men/women ratio on the anti-choice side.

Men may agree/disagree the same as women, but I have they generally appear to be less invested in the outcome than they should be.

[MuseRider]

5. When you got no skin in the game

it does not make you care a whole lot.

There are some men who do care and feel they do have skin in the game but on the whole they really do not even want to talk about it in my experience. Not their problem.

[Ilsa]

9. That's why our stories are so important: to show them

that they do have skin in the game, either as a potential partner to someone needing an abortion, or someone else close to them, or because of the right-shift on privacy and human rights. Our stories, whether personal or passed along, explain to people with no skin in the game why abortion rights should be a priority. But I got hammered in a thread on that idea.

As a speaker recently said: "Someone you love has had an abortion."

[MuseRider]

12. You got hammered for that?

That is exactly what we have to do for those who are hidden away from all of it, men often and children brought up with only one way to think and people who just generally believe it will never happen to them. If they cannot expand their minds and hearts to hear the stories of those who have suffered then we are in too big of a mess to fix anything.

Is it because they are bored with our stories or sick of them or scared the stories might end up getting us arrested? I have told mine.

You go right ahead. You are correct to tell your story or someone elses story. No one can stop you yet!

[Sympthsical]

6. That's a very good point

It's definitely a "more skin in the game" proposition. It shouldn't be, but people are people. As a gay man, I don't give the topic much thought outside of the usual political consideration I give a dozen other things. Only when some external force galvanizes attention like Texas last year or the Roe developments have I started giving time and attention to advocating and focusing.

With women, it's just part of their existence in this country. It's in the back of their minds with every reproductive choice they make.

Definitely glad you highlighted that.

[SharonClark]

7. Answering a poll is one thing.

Voting on the issue is another.
The most reliable pro-choice voter is a pro-choice woman. Men consistently vote more conservative on social issues because other issues are more important to them.

[Scrivener7]

8. I'm not surprised. The only surprise to me in there is that Catholics are more pro choice than

Protestants.

The difference between men and women on the issue, as others have said, is how high it is on their priorities.

[yardwork]

11. That doesn't surprise me either.

It's the white evangelical Protestants who are in favor of oppressive laws. In general, American Catholics are fairly reasonable about human rights. Look at Jie Biden. And mainstream Protestants are fairly progressive.

It doesn't surprise me at all that the right-wing women and men are equal in their support of oppression.

[IronLionZion]

10. The elderly conservative church crowd is also sharing COVID with each other

so there might be fewer of them soon

[Skittles]

13. look who gets it right the most

the "unaffiliated"

[NickB79]

14. The most rabid prolifers I know are all women

Old, white, and extremely religious Catholics.