By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
A new poll has found that a substantial majority of American adults, including some who describe themselves as “pro choice” think abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.
CNSNews.com is reporting that the poll, conducted May 5-8, surveyed 1,018 Americans who were asked to identity themselves as either pro-life or pro-choice, and to say whether they thought abortion should be legal under any circumstance, under only some circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances.
Forty-nine percent of respondents identified themselves as pro-choice with 42 percent saying they are pro-life.
About 71 percent of respondents said they thought abortion should be illegal in at least some cases. Of this figure, 22 percent said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and 39 percent said it should be legal in “only a few circumstances” which means 61 percent of those polled believe abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.
The poll also asked respondents if they personally believe abortion is “morally acceptable” or “morally wrong” and a majority (51%) said they believed it was wrong. Only 39 percent said it was morally acceptable.
Age mattered in this poll. Younger Americans tended to have a tougher moral view of abortion than their elders with 53 percent of respondents age 18-34 saying it was “morally wrong”, which surpassed the 51 percent of Americans age 55+ who said they thought it was wrong, and the 48 percent of people in the 35-54 age group who said the same.
Women were also less likely than others to reject exceptions for abortion with 24 percent of them saying abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. By comparison, only 19 percent of men took that position.
The poll is coming at a bad time for Planned Parenthood who has been losing ground in the fight to keep taxpayer funding in place for abortions in various states, with federal measures still in play to strike these funds from various public programs as well as the health care reform bill.
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