2018 Irish 8th Amendment (Abortion) Referendum

[DC Al Fine]

Well, the Yes posters are very clear what they support: expand medical care and give women choice. Almost nobody is "pro-abortion", supportive of abortion as a systemic policy, in any country actually; I suppose some anti-natalist governments were. But this is a distinction many are content to miss in order to promulgate the usual myths about politicians being lyin' Hillarys, or a psycho Jewish Soros conspiracy.

You're missing the point entirely.

Yes favours expanding medical care for and giving women choice to do what exactly? The what matters here. It's not giving choice to obtain codeine cough syrup or expanding palliative care. Its choice to obtain an abortion.

The fact that Yes is avoiding the relatively neutral "A word" in their campaign, while No is banging the drum on it says a lot about the state of Irish culture. Yes euphemizing what their cause is indicates that the Irish are not nearly as comfortable with abortion as they are gay marriage as Observer indicated.

[DC Al Fine]

I predict the YES (repeal the 8th) side will win, and by a 3%-7% margin.

That sounds about right. No will come close but not quite pull it off

[DC Al Fine]

I think the absolute worst-case-scenario would be a slight NO-win, with exit polls showing women voting YES by a good margin and men voting strongly against ...

In most polls ive seen, Men are supporting yes at higher margins than women which is probably because for older more religious women its an issue that pertains to them. In the US for example, its usually older religious women 55+ who are backbone of the anti-choice campaigns.

Yeah Tender. You're listening too much to your own side's rhetoric about "controlling women's bodies". Most polling indicates that the sexes are evenly split or that women are marginally more pro-life.

[DC Al Fine]

I don't have too much to add. I thought the polls would narrow and Yes would would have a relatively small win. Obviously I was wrong on that front. Ireland is rapidly converging on the rest of the West for good or for ill (Ill obviously IMO).

[DC Al Fine]

Should Roe ever get overturned, I have no doubt US public opinion would start to look a lot more like those results than what we see today.

It's actually the other way around. Ireland remains more anti-abortion than the US; and public opinion in America would need to look more like Ireland's in order to be Roe to be overturned...

Is there any good Irish polling on the public's preferred abortion policy? I.e. X weeks limit, exceptions for Y &Z etc.

[DC Al Fine]

Should Roe ever get overturned, I have no doubt US public opinion would start to look a lot more like those results than what we see today.

It's actually the other way around. Ireland remains more anti-abortion than the US; and public opinion in America would need to look more like Ireland's in order to be Roe to be overturned...

Is there any good Irish polling on the public's preferred abortion policy? I.e. X weeks limit, exceptions for Y &Z etc.

From a Jas post elsewhere:

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I would imagine that well over 70% of Americans back abortion-on-demand up to 12 weeks...

Thanks for the info. I did a little digging and it's about 2/3 in favour in the first trimester (which is about 12 weeks). So the Irish are still somewhat more pro-life than the Americans.

[DC Al Fine]

The fact that nearly 90% of 18-24 year olds voted repeal, although unsurprising, gives me chills.

In the US, most abortion polls show no age gap and some even show a slight reverse age gap.  I wonder why Ireland is so different.

I'm not knowledgable enough to give a detailed explanation, so I'll just leave it at: Irish and American youth have very different relationships with religion and secularism.