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Women Fail To Get Message

Hey, wait!: In the head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama also maintained much of the advantage he had built in the last year among important constituencies, including women, although he lost some support among women over the past month, even as the debate raged over birth control insurance coverage. Says the New York Times/CBS News poll. See […]

Hey, wait!:

In the head-to-head matchups, Mr. Obama also maintained much of the advantage he had built in the last year among important constituencies, including women, although he lost some support among women over the past month, even as the debate raged over birth control insurance coverage.

Says the New York Times/CBS News poll. See the graphic here.  Obama lost 12 points with women voters since the last NYT/CBS poll, in February. Don’t these women understand that the Republicans hate women, and want to help the Catholic Church make birth control illegal? Where have they been?

Seriously, though, there’s some interesting data from that poll about the whole birth control mandate debate. The issue, it turns out, is a loser for the Democrats. According to the poll findings, 51 percent of voters say all employers should have the right to opt out of providing contraception coverage; only 40 percent say it should be mandated. When asked if religious employers should have that right, the numbers cut even worse against the Democratic position: 57 percent come down on the side of opt-out, versus 36 percent for the mandate.

Here are further surprising numbers from this poll: 51 percent of those polled say that this issue is about women’s health and rights, but only 37 percent say the issue is about religious freedom. And yet, a substantial majority believes religious employers should have the liberty to opt out. Interesting.

Oh, and get this: 64 percent of those polled say they favor the use of artificial birth control, versus 21 percent who think it’s wrong (the rest don’t have an opinion). Isn’t that interesting? You hear that “98 percent of all women who have had sex have used birth control” stat thrown around all the time, but this poll says that at least one in five adults thinks artificial contraception is immoral. I didn’t see a male-female breakdown on that figure, though.

 

 

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