MURDER SHE WROTE...

I find it really interesting how pollsters can manipulate wording within a question to provoke a certain response.  I think of this technique more as a skill.  As I have mentioned previously, I am going to law school next year, and I believe that being able to analyze and spot manipulative words will help me when I need to infer about something indirectly.  Below are two polls that ask the same question (in essence).  

In "Polling the Nations: Abortion: General", a poll is constructed in a True or False format to the statement:

Poll #1

Abortion is murder:  True or False?

 At the same time, another poll (which you can view here) is constructed as well in the same format, except the statement is altered to say:

 Poll #2

Abortion is not murder:  True or False?

The same company, YouGov Polimetrix, conducted both polls the exact same day.  Both used the Internet to host the poll as well as the same sample size of 1,000.  With matching data for the date of poll, sample size, host, and pollster, it is easy to assume that this poll was conducted at the same time as the other.  However, we should not assume anything.  So we are going to treat the two polls as separate entities.  

So it is obvious that the keyword "not" is inserted into the statement in Poll #2.  Let's observe the results to try and see if the keyword influences anything.

Both polls hold very bold statements about whether or not "Abortion IS murder".  There are no circumstances offered.  And I think it is important to note that the responses do not represent the percentage of people who hold a certain belief on the legality of abortion.  For example,  in Poll #2, 33% responded "True" to the statement "Abortion is not murder"--This does not mean that those respondents who chose to answer True believe that abortion should be legal.  In society, the term "murder" is generally used in negative contexts.  So it may be easy to suspect that people who do not see abortion as being associated with a negative context also view abortion to be legal.  Some people can believe that abortion is not murder, but still don't think it is morally right to make it legal.  Ultimately, we do not know what the sample believes on the legalities of the issue.  And it should not be confused with what the poll is really asking.

Generally, in my opinion, pro-lifers tend to argue that abortion is literally killing a human being--and for lack of a better word--murder.  To me, I believe that most people would consider a late-term abortion to be murder.  I have no data to support this, but I think most of society is against late-term abortions.  States are given the right to restrict late term abortions.  I'm going to post later about late-term abortions.  But, what do you think?  Considering that pregnancies usually average about 36 weeks, if you or someone you knew decided to have an abortion at 35 weeks and 6 days, would that be murder?  What does that one more day mean to you?