by Mary Margaret Olohan
A record number of Americans find abortion “morally acceptable” though American sentiment on the matter is sharply divided, a Gallup poll released Wednesday found.
Forty-seven percent of Americans find abortion acceptable, while 46% think abortion is wrong from a moral perspective, the poll found. The percentage of Americans who find abortion acceptable increased two points, the highest level of support Gallup has found since it began tracking the matter two decades ago.
The poll found that Democrats (64%) and independent voters (51%) have grown more likely to say that abortion is morally acceptable. Twenty-six percent of Republicans polled find abortion morally acceptable.
American public sentiment is closely split on identifying as pro-life versus pro-choice, the poll found. Forty-nine percent of Americans identify as pro-choice, while 47% of Americans identify as pro-life. Public sentiment on abortion was more pro-choice between 1995 and 1997, Gallup noted, when 52% of Americans identified as pro-choice and 38% as pro-life. An average of 47% of Americans have said they are pro-choice since 1998, according to Gallup.
Most Democrats have expressed the belief that abortion is morally acceptable every year that Gallup has been polling since 2004, Gallup noted, but no more than 31% of Republicans and 51% of independents have held the view that abortion is morally acceptable since 2001.
Gallup polled a random sample of about 1,016 United States adults over the phone between May 3-May 18 with a margin of error of ±4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
While many Americans support abortion or identify as pro-choice, Americans are more divided on specific issues like abortions later in a mother’s pregnancy or taxpayer funding for abortion.
A January poll conducted by the Knights of Columbus and Marist found that 77% Americans said they were “strongly opposed” to using tax dollars to support abortion in other countries. Only 19% of Americans polled “support” or “strongly support” funding abortions outside the U.S., the poll found.
“While the number of people who identify as ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ tends to fluctuate with the public debate, when given a broader choice of policy options, there is a strong consensus among Americans on abortion,” Dr. Barbara Carvalho, director of The Marist Poll, said in a statement at the time. “Survey results reveal support for abortion restrictions and an aversion for use of taxpayer funding for abortions abroad.”
The United States Supreme Court announced May 17 that it will take up a major Mississippi abortion case that could directly challenge Roe v. Wade. The court will hear Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization beginning in October, and a decision on the case will likely come by June 2022, CNBC reported. This will be the first major abortion case in which all three of former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justice appointees participate, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who gained a seat on the court after a contentious confirmation process in October.
The case deals with a 2018 Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks, a law challenged by activists on behalf of the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law in December 2019, the state of Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to take up the case.
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Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Planned Parenthood Supporters” by The All-Nite Images. CC BY-SA 2.0.
This article and the claims it makes is just more “bovine excrement”. Any poll can be manipulated to reach the outcome the pollster desires.
Refer to the first sentence.
All of these souless people will face their maker one day and will be held accountable for their sin of murderinig the unborn. Pregnancy is not a disease and abortion is not healthcare. If you don’t want to have a baby then use birth control or keep your legs closed. Why should an innocent child pay for your lack of accountability?
in the end of times right will be wrong and wrong will be right. we are almost there.
Americans do not usually think of abortion and its counterpoint, euthanasia, as positions of power. But both these attitudes reflect the growing feeling that I – me, the individual person – can have control over anything I want to have control over. This attitude is applauded loud and clear in the media and what is still called “education”. This makes man his own god who can do whatever he thinks is right. Since he suffers no immediate judgement for this attitude, he gets more and more comfortable with it and eventually accepts it as good and right and just. “When a man stops believing in God, he does not then believe nothing: he believes anything.” G. K. Chesterton
My wife and I do not have children by choice yet still view abortion as morally messed up. “Follow the science” Living being + “health care providers” with vacuum = murder
However, I am more than happy to fund any leftist wishing to terminate their filth genes from being passed down as a plague on our society. That will save many more lives than it takes.
Only suggests there’s a record number of Americans who are spiritually lost. “The way that leads to destruction is broad and narrow is the way that leads to eternal life.” So, that makes complete sense.