Biased polling

Gerard Nadal’s post on Chapter Three of Embryo: A Defense of Human Life has been postponed until tomorrow. In the meantime, I was intigued by this 2009 article that a facebook friend shared: “Poll Shows Catholics Support Abortion Funding in Healthcare.” Wow! Those anti-choice religious fanatics have finally come around! But read the actual article, and you’ll realize that:
1) The strong support is for abortions in pregnancies that threaten the mother’s life or long-term health.
2) Only 50% support funding for abortion “whenever a woman and her doctor decide it is appropriate.”
3) That still seems awfully high, since numerous polls have shown opposition in the 60 to 70% range for Americans generally, regardless of religion. Perhaps that’s because…
4) This poll was sponsored by Catholics for Choice.
I’m blogging about this admittedly old news because there’s an important moral to this story: Don’t trust the headlines, boys and girls! This was a naked attempt to increase distrust between Catholic and secular pro-lifers to fracture our coalition. Of course, we saw in the months after this survey that the pro-abortion lobby shifted back to their usual “portray the pro-life movement as religiously motivated” strategy. Who cares if that’s inconsistent?