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There are plenty of Catholics in favor of some kind of abortion. 

There are plenty of religious people of all stripes who are in favor of their religious edicts, except for the very few that offend them personally. And for those, well, they do what they want to do. 

I think this is very prevalent with American Catholics and contraception. I knew quite a few (my ex's extended family) that had the number of kids that they wanted to have, and then the men went and got the snip-snip procedure. They may say they're against contraception in general, but balanced against not wanting more kids personally, guess which one won out? 

my point

politicians are more worried about votes than promoting or pushing their foolish religious beliefs

I don't see religion as a big deal in politics

I'm still wondering way OAM thinks it's such a big deal.  In this country or in his state.

I highly suspect some politicans make a big deal out of religiosity to get votes, and in fact are not religious at all.

Did you know AOC claims to be a Catholic?  Maybe she is, maybe she attends Mass faithfully, to the extent that is important.  I don't know.  

AOC credits her Catholic faith for positions on health care, environment | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org)

I already directly answered this.

Because one's foundational beliefs (that influence their voting) are based on supernatural zaniness with zero evidence.....and the other's foundational beliefs are based in the reality we all share.

Your rather obvious error here is that you say this as if there were no non-religious zany beliefs.  

The abortion thing is easy for me.  There's a reason the word fetus exists.

If the fetus could come out and survive on its own, you have an argument, and that's largely the 3rd trimester.  Any attempt at legislating before then is simply taking your subjective ethics and applying it to other people, which is wrong.

Even the 15 week idea is perfect fine, and should be for both 'sides.'  But one side religiousizes the damn thing and wants life to begin when the guy starts breathing hard in the act.

It's more bullshit.  Thanks religion.

Agree that the two extremes complicate the issue but that is true of every issue and for some reason you attack the "religious" side without applying the same logic to the other side.  

Polling on abortion is fascinating.  Both sides try to claim that "the people" support their view.  They get there by using polls that ask about the other side's most extreme positions.  Ie, if you want a poll that shows OVERWHELMING support for abortion rights, ask if a woman should be allowed to get a first-trimester abortion or, for even more overwhelming support use the Catholic position against them and ask if birth control should be banned.  

But this cuts both ways.  If you poll on the question "Should a mother be permitted to terminate a pregnancy if, after the head comes out she thinks it is ugly and doesn't want to raise it?" you'll find pretty strong support for abortion restrictions.  

A lot of people on the right convinced themselves that "the people" agreed with them on abortion so once Roe was overturned they passed very restrictive abortion laws in a number of states but suffered severe electoral consequences:

• Trump was part of it, but the post Roe Abortion laws were a bigger part if you look at the polling of turning what should have been a red wave in 2022 into a non-event.  
• Many states, even very securely Republican voting states codified Abortion rights in their laws or State Constitutions by popular vote as a blowback to the restrictive laws that had been passed.  

If you look really close at the polling it seems that the middle position in America is roughly at end of 2nd/beginning of 3rd trimester which coincides reasonably well with survivability.  

By definition the two sides have to be hardliners about it.

If the Religious Right allows for abortion at any point beyond conception, they are saying there's a point at which that's not "a baby" and not deserving of protection. And in doing so, they have to be able to determine when that changes. They can't really do that, and so the point at which the protection of "the baby" and the rights of the mother balance becomes political. Any retreat from "begins at conception" can be a slippery slope towards being allowed up until 9 months.

If the Secular Left admits at any point prior to birth that what's in the belly is a "a baby" deserving of protection, then they become limited by the same definitional problem of when that flips. And with medical science learning more and more about what might happen in some of the early (pre 15 week) gestational periods, any retreat from "when you see the head" can be a slippery slope to not having any abortions because you might not be able to get it done since you didn't even know you were pregnant by which time the limit kicks in. 

Both sides are terrified of trying to define some point in between, because it's possible that the definition point is going to be somewhere they don't like it to be. It's either allowing lots of abortions (pissing off the Right) or not functionally allowing any/many abortions (pissing off the Left).

I'm not disagreeing but there is another related issue that is a big part of the cause of this and that is political polarization, districting, and lack of participation in primaries:

Unfortunately not many US Voters actually show up and vote in the Primaries.  Worse, the few who do tend to be those most politically involved and those tend to be the ones closest to the fringe and thus farthest from the center.  This makes it difficult for a moderate of either party to get elected.  The combination of the above factors also leads to a situation where the greatest political threat to most officeholders is NOT that they'll lose to a challenger from the other side or even from the more moderate portion of their own side but rather that they'll get "primaried" by a more radical challenger from their own side.  

Not far upthread @OrangeAfroMan outlined a pretty moderate position on abortion.  I'll alter it just slightly to a more conventionally defined ban on third-trimester abortions.  Now lets imagine that OAM was a Democrat Congressman from a typical 60/40 Democrat district.  Further, lets assume that he had a cross-aisle Republican Congressional ally who took the exact same position in his 60/40 Republican district.  

If the bulk of voters showed up and voted in primaries, OAM and his ally would probably be fine but they don't.  There is a pretty strong chance that if the above happened, OAM would get taken out in a primary by a NARAL-supported pro-abortion hardliner.  Meanwhile, his cross-aisle Republican ally would likely get taken out by an anti-abortion hardliner.  Congress wouldn't change any on the net.  We'd lose two moderates and replace them with two hardliners so the balance of power doesn't change.  What does change is the ability to compromise ever, on anything.  With moderates removed and only hardliners left there isn't room for compromise.  

I personally think that understates the number of nonbelievers. "Atheist" is a scary term that a lot of people don't want to carry around their necks. If for no other reason than the PR for the word "atheist" is ruined by a bunch of, well, assholes.

But currently 28% of Americans are "religiously unaffiliated."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/religious-nones-more-than-1-in-4-u-s-adults-pew-research-center-report/

So maybe half of that 28% halfheartedly believe in "something", that they can't define. 29% of 28% (8% of Americans, not 4%) completely rejected the notion of a higher power. And I'm guessing the other group that's not "spiritual", another 6%, would be agnostic meaning they don't want to claim they're certain nothing exists, but they don't affirmatively believe in anything.

So IMHO that gets you to about 14% that don't believe in God, and another 14% that believe in "something" but they're not sure what it is.

All this talk about agnostics reminds me of one of my favorites jokes:

A Churchgoer, an agnostic, and a televangelist are sitting at a bar when Jesus walks in.  Jesus introduces himself as the son of god, says he is visiting earth on a mission and asks each of them for $100 to support his mission.  The Churchgoer bows down, praises him, and gives him $100.  The agnostic says that he isn't sure if he believes and gives him $50 "just in case".  The televangelist tells Jesus that he'll give him $1,000 if Jesus will teach him the trick he pulled with the agnostic.