It was confirmed again, during the controversy over Robert Bork, that abortion remains a potent issue in our politics, even when there is an attempt to mute or conceal it. Just what use is made of this issue in any given campaign may depend on how the political managers read two conflicting strands of evidence drawn from surveys of opinion. On the one hand, the polls show a lingering reluctance on the part of the public to challenge the decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade (1973), the decision that articulated a “right to an abortion.” The disposition of the public seems so stable on this point that one editorial writer for the New York Times was moved to observe that the question of abortion has now been “settled.”
On the other hand, the surveys have shown that the public has been quite as stable, since the 1970s, in its hostility to everything that was licensed by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. The most plausible explanation for this conflict is that most people are serenely unaware of what Roe v. Wade actually established.
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