America's ambivalence towards abortion?

There's no way this poll result is valid:

In the Third Way poll, 72 percent said the decision to have an abortion should be "left up to a woman, her family, and her doctor," while at the same time 69 percent acknowledged that abortion "is the taking of human life." .

That means that at least 41 percent of people feel that abortion is the taking of human life but that it is acceptable that the decision to have said abortion should be "left up to a woman, her family, and her doctor." That means that 41 percent of people feel that it's acceptable for "a woman, her family, and her doctor" to unilaterally engage in the "taking of a human life."

Am I the only one troubled by that?

To me, the debate has always been pretty straight-forward: either you believe that humanity begins at conception, or at some point thereafter. Perhaps it's at viability, perhaps at the moment of birth, perhaps it's at some time some weeks or months or even years after birth. However, there is a very clear line there: either you are a person or you are not; either you can be killed legally or you cannot. The people who are taking the position which is espoused here, that it is okay to kill people because their existence is inconvenient, is shocking and reprehensible. I, frankly, cannot believe that 40 percent of Americans are in that camp.

A New Ambivalence
Long a black-and-white issue, abortion is now seen more as an argument to be fostered, not settled
Newsweek

Although plenty of people are passionate about abortion, few of them would spend 16 years and $7 million of their own money making a movie about it, especially one that tries not to take sides. British filmmaker Tony Kaye, who says he's not pro-life or pro-choice but "confused," can't even explain why he became so obsessed with the topic. But in his 152-minute documentary, "Lake of Fire," which opens in New York this week, Kaye - who also directed "American History X" - offers an exhaustive look into the extremes of the abortion fight. Pro-choicers will wince at the graphic footage of actual abortions - including one at 20 weeks, where tiny appendages are measured against a ruler afterward. Pro-lifers will be dismayed they're represented largely through the rantings like extremists like Paul Hill, who was later executed for murdering an abortion doctor. Though it mentions South Dakota's recent attempt to ban nearly all abortion, the movie concentrates on the protests and clinic violence of the 1990s. It doesn't take into account any of the profound changes of the past decade: pro-lifer's move away from the picket lines into state legislatures and courtrooms, the battle over "partial-birth abortion" that forced Americans to focus on the specifics of the procedure, or even how more-sophisticated technology is changing minds about just when life begins.

Despite our tendency to focus on the extremes of the abortion debate, many Americans - including those who say they are pro-choice or pro-life - have come to realize that the issue won't be settled any time soon. In a national poll to be released this week by the influential Democratic think tank Third Way, nearly three quarters said they wished elected leaders would look for common ground on abortion. The country is pretty evenly divided on their standing view of the question: 40 percent of registered voters say they're pro-choice, 39 percent pro-life, and 18 percent volunteered the response "neither." (In a new NEWSWEEK Poll of Iowa overs, 17 percent selected "neither.") Although many liberals fear a reversal of Roe by a conservative Supreme Court, and many conservatives fear a rampant culture of abortion, much of the country in fact seems more ambivalent than adamant.