Pro-Abortion Group’s False Poll Shows Women Switch to Obama Over McCain
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 16, 2008
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A leading pro-abortion group says that women voters, when told John McCain is pro-life, say they prefer voting for Barack Obama this November. The pro-abortion organization NARAL says the results of the poll show it needs to do more to educate voters that McCain is pro-life.
However, the poll appears to give women voters a misleading picture of where Senator McCain stands on abortion.
The poll, conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, included Republican and independent women from 12 presidential battleground states.
According to the poll, Obama gains 13 percentage points among independent women voters who are pro-abortion when they’re told McCain is pro-life.
This group of voters supposedly comprises nine percent of the total electorate and, as a result, yields an overall shift of 1.6 percent to Obama.
Elizabeth Shipp, the pro-abortion group’s political director, says she’s not too worried yet about the polling results — saying NARAL has time to run attack ads against McCain across the country.
"Most voters start paying attention very late in the process, especially women," Shipp said. "As we move into the general election and we get into October, people start understanding. When they hear about choice positions, that helps clearly define in their mind where candidates stand on a host of other issues."
The poll also showed abortion is a top issue for moving these pro-abortion voters to the Obama category. They were supposedly more concerned about abortion than McCain’s position on economic issues or Iraq.
However, the result of the poll may be skewed in the pro-abortion direction as NARAL appears to have made false claims about McCain.
The NARAL statement about the survey said large numbers of women voters moved towards Obama when they were told of "McCain’s opposition to abortion for many women – even in cases of rape, incest or when a woman’s life is in danger."
However, that stance is not the position McCain takes on abortion.
McCain opposes abortion except in those three very rare cases and has repeatedly voted for abortion limits that contain the life of the mother, rape and incest exceptions.
With polls showing as many as 80-85 percent of all voters support abortion in those very limited cases, which constitute less than 1-2 percent of all abortions, the survey results would naturally show fewer voters support McCain.
The outcome of the election could depend in part on how long NARAL is allowed to make false statements about McCain’s abortion position before the McCain campaign and pro-life advocates cry foul.
