“Out of Western world countries, the United States is among the most conservative (as one of the most downwards-located countries), together with highly conserv

“Out of Western world countries, the United States is among the most conservative (as one of the most downwards-located countries), together with highly conservative Catholic countries such as Ireland and Poland.” Abortion is now legal in Ireland[1a] – it is illegal in Poland still[1b]. (Yes, abortion was only recently legalised in Ireland but that's because it required a constitutional amendment to change the law and those sorts of votes only come round once a generation, attitudes had long since shifted.) in 2015 Ireland became the first country in the world to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote[2a] – Poland does not legally recognize same-sex unions[2b], either in the form of marriage or civil unions. Ireland ranks 3rd in the world in the Human Development Index[3], 6th in the world in the Democracy Index[4], and 15th in the Press Freedom Index[5] – Poland ranks (32nd, 57th, and 59th) and the USA ranks (15th, 25th, and 48th) The view that Ireland is a highly conservative Catholic[6] country is, I would argue, a very outdated view. It's a stereotype that needs to wither on the vine, along with other crude stereotypes of the place. Of course there remain conservative pockets, but the same could be said for any place. My point being, if the chart (and article) are that off base about a country I know about how can I trust it is correct about other countries I am less familiar with? It all seems hopelessly reductive, almost a stereotyped distortion of reality. [1a] https://www2.hse.ie/abortion/ https://www2.hse.ie/abortion/ [1b] https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/08/poland-is-trying-to-make-abortion-dangerous-illegal-and-impossible/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/01/08/poland-is-trying-to-mak... [2a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_Repub... [2b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions_in_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_same-sex_unions... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index [6] https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p8iter/p8rrc/ https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp8iter/p... ( Though 78% self-report as Catholic only 35% attend Church on a weekly basis which I would argue is a truer measure of religiosity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Republic_of_Ir... )