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What Do Women Want?
It wasn't very long ago that someone I suppose in consolation noted that Obama would be just as effective in representing women's issues as Hillary would have been. Some women might choose to disagree. I've yet to find anyone thrilled about the concept of a late-term abortion, but then most people aren't thrilled about root canals and chemotherapy either. Shall we ban them? Some people choose not to have potentially life-saving invasive surgery in their old-age. Irrational or simply a difficult but honest quality of life (and dying) issue? Recently a couple had the unpleasant decision of stopping their daughter's growth and basically sterilizing her in order to be able to care for her better as she got older - a decision reached with the assistance of ethics experts. Is this unusual situation something anyone's qualified to legislate in a sweeping manner?
But here's the kicker - men are more likely to put off medical care and decisions, less likely to see a doctor early or have checkups, while ignoring serious symptoms and living less healthily. Most people know little about the myriad types and high frequency of birth complications and defects unless directly affected. There just simply isn't a large group of women too lazy and irresponsible to get an abortion the first trimester just because. And to hear a group of grown men sitting around an office making infantile jokes about lactation would make you scared shitless to have the average man involved in any female decision related to sexual anatomy or function.
What do women want? Overwhelmingly, it seems, the trust and legal ability to figure it out for themselves. That should be a central Democratic tenet. How do we make it so?
Comments (130)
Damn, I forgot to reference Melissa/Shakesville's piece on how someone over at Queerty thinks having a pap smear must be a turn-on for lesbians. Undoubtedly this is a liberal who we should applaud as sharing our values and common sense view of the world. It's a big tent...
July 10, 2008 3:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
You also forgot to learn the correct use of "reference" as a verb.
July 11, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Goodness, Desidero. I feel the need to praise you on behalf of women everywhere.
But also, what brought this on at this moment in time?
July 10, 2008 4:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
What brought this on? Well, I've written enough similar posts and comments through the last 6 months, and I just happened across these 2 articles I referenced. Did I step out of character?
July 10, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you suggesting pregnancy is a kind of illness?
July 10, 2008 4:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Certainly not, but pregnancy frequently comes with unwanted side-effects. Ignoring those and presuming pregnancy and childbirth only happen problem free is a huge injustice.
July 10, 2008 9:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
The insurance companies treat it as if it was. I couldn't switch insurances while I was pregnant. It's a "pre-existing condition." How absurd is that?
When my sister was born, my mother went into severe preeclampsia, and she was born 2 months early. 3 libs, 8 ozs. Teeny little thing. Fingers and toes like kernels of rice. She was in the NICU for some time. My mom in the hospital for awhile too. Looking back on it, they both almost died, but we, as kids, didn't know at the time.
She had health insurance, of course. But they send the bill anyway, showing how much everything cost. 1 million smackaroos. In 88. Can you imagine if you didn't have insurance? "Sure, can we work out a payment plan? I'll send you 50 bucks every month for the rest of my life..."
July 10, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting, it's changed recently. When I got pregnant, I had no insurance, so I called Kaiser and asked them if they considered it to be a pre-existing condition, they said, no. I got the insurance and excellent care. That was in 1991, in California.
July 10, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you get a chance to listen to Morning Edition on NPR today, they had a story about health care in France and the U.S. They actually had two women on who both spoke about the business of getting pregnant in France and moving back to the U.S. in mid-pregnancy to be told that they could not get insurance because of a "pre-existing condition." Indeed, one woman was told "the rule is that you do not insure a house on fire" (the implication, evidently, being that a pregnant woman is some sort of disaster from the insurer's point of view?). How do you like them apples? Yet another argument for a single payer plan (as if another were needed).
July 10, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow. Interesting insurance company logic.
If pregnant women are "houses on fire,"
wouldn't this make men "arsonists?"
July 10, 2008 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like it Quinn. I'm logging that one away for future reference.
July 10, 2008 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Houses in Motion.
More Songs about Buildings and Food.
July 11, 2008 2:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning.
July 11, 2008 5:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
ARGH!
WHAT DO WENCHES DESIRE?
BESIDES CHILDREN TO SIRE?
THE BAD BOY WHO IS LOTS OF FUN
THE GEEK WHO SUBS WHEN BAD BOY'S DONE
AND FOR THE WENCHES WHO DISAGREE
ME DON'T WANT THEM NEXT TO ME!
ME WANT WENCH HILL IN A STATE COUP
AND TPM WENCHES: ME WANT YOU TOO!
BUCKLE TO YOUR FOPPERY WENCHES AND LET THIS PIRATE SWAGGER HIS DAGGER. SHIP SHAPE SHIP SHOP IF THE DECK'S MOIST GET OUT THE MOP!
ACQUIRE! MERGE! MARAUD! DILUTE! DILUTE!
ARGH!
July 10, 2008 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Man, I thought I was going to get some turn on tips ala Cosmo, and here you go getting all political on me. Crayfish have 24 hour orgasms. Proof there is no intelligent designer.
July 10, 2008 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Women is sort of a broad category (pun not really intended).
Here's what one woman wants:
1. Access for everyone to affordable health care, including any and ALL family planning services.
2. Access for everyone to affordable day care.
3. The end to an unjust war.
4. Repair of the planet.
5. Transparency in government.
6. To be able to afford to drive my tiny, fuel effiencient car again.
7. To encounter far less idiocy on a daily basis.
8. To be able to hold my own opinions, and to express them, without being attacked, belittled, patronized, or insulted.
9. For the media to stop assuming that "women" is an amorphous blob with one mind and one set of values.
10. To get my own way most of the time.
Oh yeah, and for Barack Obama to be the next president.
July 10, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have trouble with #7. Will consult my lawyer.
Bright side: the continued existence of that broken car should reduce the number of idiots encountered.
July 10, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sadly no, rolling up your windows and cruising around makes it easy to limit close encounters with the 3rd kind.
July 10, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
You'd pick Obama over a 24-hour orgasm? That's hard to believe.
July 10, 2008 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Speaking as a male, if "24 Hour Orgasm" was on the ticket, I know which way I'd be leaning. Hell, canvassing. 24HO! 24HO!
Which may make me part of the problem. Diagnosis, Doc?
July 10, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Boys.
July 10, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps less than technically, we women can get that 24 hour O already with enough work. No sale.
July 10, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. But think of the electrical footprint at your houses.
July 10, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wishing for 7 & 8 is rediculous. Idiocy has been with us since the begining and will be with us for all time. Idiots or unethical people who disagree with you will always use whatever slimy methods they can to discredit or dismiss you. Wishing for this to not be true is just as reasonable as wishing to get a flying pony for your birthday.
July 10, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
11. A flying pony for my birthday.
July 10, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like one to.-)
July 10, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unity Pony can fly, baby!
Now. If we could just get that left wing flapping.....
July 10, 2008 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't worry about it. That pony has enough middle wing to make it fly on its own.
July 10, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want someone who will keep his promises. I want someone who will not support immunity for telecoms. Someone who will not back corn ethanol. Someone who will trust women to make moral decisions in the third trimester.
I don't want McCain and I don't want Obama but on the current evidence I will take McCain over Obama. In part because Obama moves the new unDemocratic Party right -- Obama's Supreme Court picks would not be blocked and McCain's might. Obama's attempts to water down choice would be groveled to and McCain's attempts to block choice would be fought.
With McCain we are apt to more quickly get less ideal solutions which work. With Obama you will get pie in the sky proposals followed by caves which don't work. Google Obama and Nuclear Leaks and NY Times. Sorrowfully, this looks more and more like Obama's standard operating proposal.
McCain opposed corn ethanol in Iowa while Obama supported it.
July 10, 2008 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you think that the worst we will get from McCain is "less ideal solutions," then you haven't been listening.
On second thought, you are obviously a McCain toady and so, I'll just stop right here. Just have one question though: Aren't you afraid he'll forget what he's supposed to do for you if he manages to steal this election?
July 10, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
In reply to AJM.
I hope the link works. It is a NYT op ed today by
Gail Collins. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/opinion/10collins.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin
It is called the Audacity of Listening and it speaks to your comment.
July 10, 2008 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have to disagree here, Des, if I'm understanding you correctly. If you're suggesting that the conditions under which a woman should have access to a 3rd trimester abortion should be left to women alone, then I would strongly disagree. All members of our society have a vested interest in determining the circumstances under which pregnancies should be terminated. We're talking about ending a life. Yes, the decision has a substantial impact on the pregnant mother. It also has a substantial impact on the life that's been developing in her womb for six months or more. It's a delicate issue, but I wouldn't agree that the discussion and the ultimate determinations are something that men have no right to participate in.
July 10, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
So....the yet to be born are property of the state? Wait a minute. Females are born with all the eggs they will ever have. Why is it the state that gets to choose their future?
July 10, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The fact that the state takes an interest in your killing or not killing me does not make me the "property" of the state. I think that your argument is confusing the categories of "interest" and "ownership."
July 10, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, yeah, I don't think of any of this in terms of this life that's developing in a woman's womb being anyone's property. My eggs in my ovaries - yep, those are mine. But, once they become fertilized and begin to develop into a life form, well, then I'd say that my partner has a vested interest in how that pregnancy progresses or doesn't. And once there's a life developing there, all of us, have some interest in determining under what conditions that life can be terminated.
I think about these issues in a similar vein to when it's okay to stop life support. Most of us would agree that it's a very personal decision. But, we also can't go to the extreme of saying that the State should have no role in determining when it's acceptable to withhold medical intervention and when it's not, can we?
July 10, 2008 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
God, yes, thank you, Carol. You always amaze me how enlightened you are.
Most people who think in terms of Roe v Wade forget about men's rights also. This is particularly important because an unmarried woman can choose to have a baby, even if the father does not, and then use the state to track down the father for fiscal support. It's also legal for the mother to "kidnap" the baby because it is still in the womb. I know of a case where a foreign woman did this, had the baby in another country and then used the country's government to talk to the US government and have the US government extract payment from the father. (So much for protecting your own citizens!)
I do not believe abortion is a substitute for birth control, but if you want to talk about trampling rights... there is a side of this issue which hardly ever gets discussed. Especially by the older feminists who are fighting battles from 1970 still.
Thanks for talking about how this issue is far more complex than most people think. (And it is disturbing that abortion rates have dropped, especially since, as discussed in FREAKONOMICS, there is good statistical data to believe that legalized abortion has helped lower the crime rate.)
July 10, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that he means men in the sense of political leaders or religious leaders unaffiliated with the actual pregnancy, not the fathers.
July 10, 2008 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
And even referenced an ethics panel available for one controversial and difficult decision. Except that might have been in England - in the US we might run into the Kansas Board of Education situation that makes reasonable compromises untenable.
July 10, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look. Do you know why vasectomies aren't 100% effective? It's because the wives of men who have had vasectomies still get pregnant. Pregnancy and what she does about it is a woman's business. Period.
July 10, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Vasectomies are 100% effective and only not judged to be so in statistical studies that take into account very rare mistakes. When the tubes are cut there is no possible way for the sperm to exist the body. Period.
There is no possible way for that wife to become pregmant,........ by her husband.
July 10, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Easy with the tube-cutting talk, dudes.
July 10, 2008 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dull.
July 10, 2008 11:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about every ten years or so, men are considered to have entered a "trimester," and their health care is put under the control of an all-female panel? Special emphasis would be placed on prostate exams, testicular interventions, dental work.
Probably best, for the protection of all, if these panels consisted of the meanest, most man-hating women available. Just to ensure thoroughness. (Anyone caught using the word "pussy" - as some posters yesterday seemed to prefer - gets a panel of my Aunts. That'd fix 'em.)
July 10, 2008 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you mean that in the literal sense?
July 10, 2008 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Q is limitless in his imagination. All options I'm sure are on the table.
July 10, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Time for your check-up, Ben.
July 10, 2008 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
He's just calling a spayed a spayed.
July 10, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't go all farm-implement on me, Des. This is not the place to get into that sort of name-calling.
July 10, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I said nothing about spades, and if you remember I referred to tubes tied, not cut, just so it's reversible. Your best interests in mind as always.
July 10, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who could you possibly be talking about?
July 10, 2008 12:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
United Statesians need more public spaces outside of uteruses.
Nationalize those golf courses but preserve uteruses from eminent domain.
Thanks, Des, for not waiting until after November to say this.
July 10, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Preserve uteruses from eminent domain."
I think I might have to print t-shirts!
July 10, 2008 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I read it as
"Preserver uteruses from Eminem domain"
another slamming idea.
Perhaps after a year or two he'll be forgotten.
July 10, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll buy about ten of them.
July 10, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since you were born with all the eggs you will ever have and, that eggs are separte entities unto themselves and unique to you; wouldn't it be better to say on the T-shirt:
"Preserve My Eggs From Eminent Domain!"
July 10, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reasonable regulation of abortions is not an unreasonable assault on womens rights. The extreemist on both sides of this issue are idealougs who work to prevent reasonable compromise.
July 10, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Idealug" - I LIKE it. Thass me.
Now if we could just get rid of those Idealogs on the other side....
July 10, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
The twin facts of my inability to spell or type does make me look like and idiot at times.
July 10, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
No man, the best new words come outta that sometimes. Idealug, I'm serious - I like it!
July 10, 2008 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about idealuge? It the same thing ecept head first and faster.
July 10, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Individual choice IS complete and without reservation the ultimate and absolute compromise. What about it don't you get?
July 10, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
What are you trying to say?
July 10, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only reason that Choice is a compromise by Anti-Abortion people is that there can be no compromise and from their perspective, there is no freedom of choice. It's a zero sum game based on religious and/or moral "belief".
From the Freedom of Choice position; the compromise is built in by the position itself and is a competing moral issue as well.
The Anti-Abortion position is really a position that says the state, not the individual, has the right to make compromises.
July 10, 2008 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hm, at the risk of throwing a rather unpleasant stink bomb into an otherwise civilized thread, it seems to me that one could change the word "abortion" in that sentence to absolutely any other behavior or action and the truth of the proposition would not be affected in the least. That is to say, one could just as truthfully aver that "the anti-rape position..." or "the anti-bicycling position is really a position that says that the state, not the individual, has the right to make compromises."
I grant the truth of the observation, but I am a touch lost as to its import in the larger discussion. It seems to me that we are all fairly comfortable with the idea that the state can reserve to itself (and thus from individuals) certain rights to do this or that. It is not clear to me that the mere business of taking notice of this fact really affects the merits of either side's arguments in this debate.
July 10, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your dissembling my argument is right on point and a good chalange to my premise, however, when one side of an arguement is in itself, a fully formed and complete compromise there is nothing left for the parties to discuss.
The Freedom of Choice vs. Anti-Abortion is this kind of dissagreement whereas, to what compromise are we discussing with regard to, Anti-Rape vs. Freedom of Choice? I suppose one does have the right of choice to be raped but, then that wouldn't be rape then, would it? Therefore, Freedom of Choice to be Raped contains no inherant compromise.
July 10, 2008 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do not wish to press the point too far, but presumably the "choice" in question would not be the freedom of choice to be raped, but the freedom of choice to rape. In other words, imagine the bumper sticker "I support a man's freedom of choice" where "choice" was a euphemism for "have sex with any woman he wants, whether she consents or not." The argument you advanced above would apply equally well in the mouth of the person with that bumper sticker as it would in the case of this nation's present abortion debate.
July 10, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I dissagree though I know it's confusing.
Just as I am not talking about a Doctor's right to perform abortions neither am I speaking to a man's right to rape a woman. This illustrates precisely where your substitutions lose their logic in dissembling my original arguement.
July 10, 2008 3:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are excluding the midle that thinks that abortion should be available but regulated.
July 10, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not at all. I think the medical industry should be regulated as it already is. Abortion is a medical proceedure and should be no more outside the physician/patient relationship than any-other medical proceedure.
July 10, 2008 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is regulated ldifferently than any other procedure. A doctor is required to have parental consent for any procedure not involved with reproduction and is prohibited from informing the parent on reproductive issues. Saying it should be regulated as other medical procedures are is a call for increased limits on abortion availability.
July 10, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't very clear. I don't think abortion should be regulated any differently than any other medical activity.
July 10, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is. Should we change that?
July 10, 2008 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hire Capt Jean-Luc, number one?
Great post Des. I'm glad there are enlightened men out there. :)
July 10, 2008 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
If there are "enlightened men", what is an enlightened woman?
July 10, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Redundant. Heh.
July 10, 2008 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Girls. :)
July 10, 2008 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kate Moss.
July 10, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hm, it is not clear to me that "women" as a category can really be understood to want less legal regulation of abortion. After all, when the Pew forum recently asked abortion in a campaign survey, it found that 55% of women wanted it to be legal in all or most cases. By contrast, 41% of women wanted it to be illegal in all or most cases. Does 55% really count as "overwhelmingly"? It seems to me that women are fairly ambivalent on this subject (at least if opinion surveys are to be believed).
July 10, 2008 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have seen surveys that lead me to believe that the position of the vast majority is that it should be legal but regulated. The numbers that are for a total prohibition or for free of any restricion whatsoever are very small. The domination of the political discussion by the extreems prevents any reasonable accomidaiton from being reached and turns it into an all or nothing fight that is bad for us all.
July 10, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
It should be regulated no different than any other medical activity and, between a woman and her choosen doctor only.
No Terry Schivo's. No lines of protesters blocking the entrance to medical facilities. No further threats to our erroding freedoms.
July 10, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is not unreasonable to say that there is a difference between teh situation before and after viability. I think that women should be fairly free to make these decisions without regulatory interference but would have no problem with laws like most european countries have saying that there are limits on that freedom after viability.
July 10, 2008 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fine by me. Who gets to say what the rules are going be and what they are based upon?
July 10, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
We do. We elect our representatives and argue our positions as participants in civil society and muddle through like we always have.
July 10, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Allowing religion to write the rules blurs the distinction between church and state.
July 10, 2008 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Religious arguments fall on deaf ears with this atheist.
July 10, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
True on both.
July 10, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Given that Mr Geater is an atheist, I very much doubt that you will get much resistance from him against that contention. That said, I rather wonder what it means to speak of "religion writing the rules." Given that any rule that you write is necessarily going to conform to some religion (given that there are so many religions out there with so many different views on so many different subjects), it is impossible to avoid the business of favoring one religion's views over another. If this constitutes a threat to the "separation of Church and State" then said separation never really stood a chance in the first place.
July 10, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was being very unpedantic at the expense of precision when I wrote "religion writing the rules".
Religion offers us nothing we don't already possess within ourselves to accomodate the development of social rules. It is toxic to honest debate.
July 10, 2008 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wether social rules conform or don't conform to some religion is not on point. Some religions will be fortunate and the rules conform to their desires and some won't be so lucky.
Just because religions have taken over one side of the debate doesn't mean that they belong there. It only means that they have polluted the environment in which the debate occurs.
They can be kicked out to clean up the evrinoment. If so, the debate will still remain.
July 10, 2008 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess that my question is "how will we know from looking at them whether rules were written by religion or not?". On the assumption that even a law which completely outlawed abortion at all stages would probably not begin "whereas almighty God decreed...", it seems to me that the rules we end up with at the end of the debate will look exactly the same whether or not "religion" has a hand in writing them. With that consideration in mind, I am rather lost as to the point of your objection.
July 10, 2008 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I could agree with you if you had said "majority," but I am skeptical of that "vast." The "legal in most cases" category in the Pew survey from August of last year that I linked above amounted to 35% of respondents. The "legal in all cases" and the "illegal in all cases" amounted to 17% each. In sum the extremes amounted to 34% of the respondents, while the category that mostly closely answers to the description "legal but regulated" was 35%. In other words, the extremists were about as numerous as the "legal but regulated" crowd.
Is 17% "very small"? I guess that is sort of a judgment call, but it seems to me that
July 10, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hm, this post seems to have been prematurely truncated. I meant to say "... seems to me that less than 5% is 'very small,' but 17% is actually a fairly large chunk of people."
July 10, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
The survey I saw but cannot now find the extreems were @ 10% each. The wording of questions matters more on this issue than others so surveys are all over the place. But even if it is 34% that fall into the no compromise camps there is still a solid filabuster proof majority in favor of some level of regulation and the debate should be about where the line should be drawn but the way we debate issues in America excludes the middle regardless of how large it may be.
July 10, 2008 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
The last study I read (don't know where), said that more women than men were in favor of making abortion illegal. More women than men were also in favor of keeping it legal.
Men outdid women only in the undecided category. Insert joke there, if you like, but I suppose it just means that, on average, women think about the issue more than men do. (I can't imagine why.)
July 10, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wake up men. It's important on so many levels.
July 10, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Happily, that seems like the sort of claim with which we can all agree.
July 10, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The numbers that I have read seem to bounce around from study to study, but I think that it safe to say that what you describe here is a common finding among many opinion surveys.
July 10, 2008 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's because most people in this country choose to stand on the centerline until hit by a bus. Then they decide to either be for something or against something. Otherwise, they would rather not bother.
July 10, 2008 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that sounds about right to my ears.