Polls find shift on abortion attitudes
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76% of Americans support significant abortion restrictions, according to a January Marist poll.
It’s true that 25% of Americans would like abortion available in the first trimester, which is a longer timespan than the Texas law. (Texas’ law bans abortion after an unborn child’s heartbeat can be detected, which is around six weeks.)
But it’s also true that a mere 15% of Americans want abortion allowed at any time of a pregnancy—yet that’s the status quo everywhere except Texas, thanks to Roe v. Wade and the Supreme Court.
Most say restrict abortion after 1st trimester.
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The recent debate over “late-term abortion,” fueled by state measures in New York and Virginia that loosened, or sought to loosen, abortion restrictions toward the end of a woman’s pregnancy, has caused “a dramatic shift” in public attitudes toward abortion policy, according to Barbara Carvalho who directed a new Marist poll, commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization.
By the numbers: The poll found Americans are now as likely to identify as pro-life (47%) as they are pro-choice (47%). Last month, a similar Marist survey found that Americans were more likely to identify as pro-choice than pro-life 55% to 38%, a 17-point gap.
The survey also found that 80% of Americans support abortion being limited to the first three months of pregnancy, an increase of 5 percentage points since last month’s Marist poll.
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Much of the country appears to be in the middle on abortion, with our poll finding :
23 percent of Americans saying abortion should be legal “most of the time,” and another;
34 percent saying it should be illegal “with exceptions.”
By contrast, 31 percent believe abortion should “always” be legal, and 8 percent say it should be illegal “without any exceptions.”
So there is a middle in this debate.
It’s just that our present political system — and our political parties — can’t handle the middle anymore, especially on abortion.
All adults:
- 54 percent legal, 42 percent illegal (was 44 percent legal, 54 percent illegal in 2003)
- Urban: 65 percent-34 percent
- Suburban: 54 percent-42 percent
- Rural: 33 percent-63 percent
- Northeast: 65 percent-34 percent
- Midwest: 49 percent-48 percent
- South: 43 percent-52 percent
- West: 65 percent-31 percent
- Evangelicals: 26 percent-70 percent
- Non-evangelicals: 65 percent-32 percent
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