The latest Gallup poll on abortion offers data for the left and the right to enjoy and declare favors their position.

The question in the survey each side can play with was this: Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances? The results were as follows:

Legal under any 25%

Legal under certain 52%

Illegal in all 20%

No opinion 3%

From this data the left will tell you that 77% support legal abortion – and they would be accurate.

But, there is more to the Gallup polling data. Gallup then asked of those who said abortion should be legal under certain circumstances: Do you think abortion should be legal in most circumstances or only in a few circumstances? The results to this question were as follows:

Legal under any 25%

Legal under most 13%

Legal only in a few 39%

Illegal in all 20%

No opinion 3%

The right will use this data to say that 59% say abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances- and they would be technically accurate.

But 77% and 59% total 136%, not 100%, so both sides are claiming the same portions of the study. So be careful when looking at headlines of polling data. You owe it to yourself to look at the polling data to see who was surveyed, were there likely or registered voters surveyed and what did the data actually say. And then make up your own mind about what the data means to you.

Read the entire report here