Politics

Only thirty percent of ladies believe there’s a ‘war on women’

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Only three in ten women appear to believe in the so-called “war on women” — a term coined by Democrats to negatively portray Republican opposition to abortion and the Obama administration’s health-care contraceptive mandate.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released Thursday found that despite breathless media coverage of the purported “war on women,” just 31 percent think there is a “wide-scale effort to limit women’s reproductive health choices and services, such as abortion, family planning, and contraception.”

Among those women who believe there is a “wide-scale effort” against their health care, 75 percent see it as a “bad thing” and 16 percent see it as a “good thing.”

Just a fourth of men believe women’s health care services are under siege, bringing the average public belief in the “war on women” to 28 percent.

Based on their numbers, the Kaiser Health tracking poll surmises that reproductive health will play a minor role in the November election.

“[I]t appears that reproductive health is likely to play at most a small role in the upcoming presidential election, as women (and all voters) continue to focus on the economy above all else,” the Kaiser foundation said. “To the extent that the issue plays any role in the campaign, the advantage in terms of female voters’ trust goes to Barack Obama and the Democrats over Mitt Romney and the Republicans.”

Although only 31 percent believe there is a concerted effort against their health care, 45 percent of female respondents said they believe there are groups that would like to limit their reproductive choices, but that there “is it not a wide-scale effort.”

Seven percent of respondents said there is no effort to reduce women’s health care options and 17 percent did not provide an opinion.

According to the Kaiser poll, women are more interested in the economy. Six in ten women voters say they would like to have candidates speak about the economy and/or jobs. Just two percent pointed to women’s health and other women-specific issues as a primary concern, but that percentage rose to 5 percent when abortion was included.

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