At The Corner, KLo cites a WSJ article on a recent Harris Poll on abortion. Here’s the link (the WSJ is free to non-subscribers for the next few days) – get a load of the questions. What a textbook example of rotten polling on abortion.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that states laws which made it illegal for a woman to have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy were unconstitutional, and that the decision on whether a woman should have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy should be left to the woman and her doctor to decide. In general, do you favor or oppose this part of the U.S. Supreme Court decision making abortions up to three months of pregnancy legal?

Um, well, that’s true as in "partially." WHY do pollsters do this? Roe and Doe in effect made abortion impossible to regulate or criminalize throughout pregnancy. I suppose, if the polling wants to explore people’s views on regulating abortion through the first trimerster, that would be almost legitimate questioning, but to ignore the bigger context strikes me as quite dishonest.