The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer has won two Emmy awards for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq, and The Numbers blog was honored this year as winner of the 2008 Iowa Gallup Award for Excellent Journalism Using Polls.
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Abortion Support: A Trend Away?
October 01, 2009 5:12 PM
The Pew Research Center’s out today with poll results indicating a decline in support for legal abortion this year. Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, as Emerson said, but I’d still like to see more of it behind this argument.
In Pew polls in April and August, 46 percent and 47 percent, respectively, favored legal abortion; 44 and 45 percent opposed it. That’s a lot closer than their 2008 average, 55-39 percent support.
The problem: These two Pew results don’t match other polls that asked the same question this year. Support for legal abortion was 55-43 percent when we polled on it in June, 52-44 percent in an AP/GfK poll also in June and 52-41 percent in a Quinnipiac poll (among registered voters) in April. Our June 21 result almost exactly matched our long-term average in polls since 1995, 56-42 percent. Looks like this:
Legal in all Illegal in all No
or most cases or most cases opin.
8/27/09 Pew 47% 45 8
6/21/09 ABC/Post 55 43 2
6/1/09 AP/GfK 52 44 5
4/27/09 Quinn. (RV) 52 41 7
4/21/09 Pew 46 44 10
Quinnipiac’s number was 57 percent in 2008, but 54 percent in 2007 and 53 percent in a poll it did in 2004. We’ve had it as low as 49 percent in a 2001 poll (and 59 percent the same year, go figure), so these numbers can move around. Indeed there’s been variability in recent polls asking people if they think of themselves as “pro-choice” or “pro-life” (as I’ve suggested, I imagine a lot think of themselves as both).
It is notable that Pew's gotten mid-40s twice this year. Nonetheless, I’d sure like more consistency across polls to call it a trend – especially given other recent data.
In a question we asked in June, for example, 60 percent said they’d want Sonia Sotomayor to vote to uphold Roe v. Wade if it came before the Supreme Court – very similar to the average (63 percent) when we asked this question four times (re Samuel Alito and John Roberts) in 2005. In somewhat different questions in CNN and CBS/NYT polls in May and June, 68 and 64 percent, respectively, did not want to see the high court overturn (or, in CNN’s phrasing, “completely overturn”) Roe – matching the high in occasional askings by CNN since 1989.
Looking around for other results, we’ve noticed that The Washington Post asked this same question in polls it’s done in Virginia this summer. It had 55-42 percent support for legal abortion there in mid-August, again very near the average in Virginia polls it’s done since 2000. (That is, admittedly, just Virginia.)
We have seen some shifting in views on other social issues, as we reported in April – some in a more conservative direction, others more liberal. We may be in a period of some changeability as people reassess these positions with the Democrats in power, one of the suggestions Pew’s making.
Pew calls on other results to support its case for a change in views on abortion. But one doesn’t seem to help: Ninety-three percent in its poll say their view on abortion hasn’t changed in the past year or so; 1 percent report moving to a more restrictive position, 3 percent to a more permissive one.
In sum, the Pew Center as usual has put out cogent analysis of interesting results. But whether we’ve got a reliable trend away from support for legal abortion is a question that, to my mind, awaits further data.
October 1, 2009 in Social Issues | Permalink | User Comments (8)
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Abortion is murder, but is it ok in cases of the mother's health, rape or incest. I don't know the answer. Really tough issue that needs to be left up to the states. I do not want to fund abortions through any government mandated health plan. That much I am clear about.
Posted by: Huh | Oct 1, 2009 5:41:25 PM
A woman't right to choose abortion is NO ONE'S business but her own. Murder should not enter into it as an ethics question. Overpopulation and children who are unwanted and abused AFTER they are here as people should be the delemma we need to address!
Posted by: Suzette Shelmire | Oct 2, 2009 9:30:20 AM
It's a personal choice. No one has the right to tell anyone whether or not they can have an abortion. It's none of their business.
Posted by: Troy Chartier | Oct 2, 2009 10:53:21 AM
I do not argue with your stand on abortion. But still, abortion is taking someone else's life. But again, we do not really know what these women are going through in their lives that they made such decision.
Opting for abortion, I believe, has something to do with the kind of values a person grew up with. It is true that when everyone else turn a person down, the only one that's left for him/her is the family. Maybe, one of the reasons why a woman does abortion is because the tie that her family has is not that tight that she can't manage to extend the problem she's going through to her family.
Posted by: almost broken joi | Oct 3, 2009 5:24:30 PM
It's murder and don't try to fool yourself. We are God's children, and our womb's should be a sacred place for birth, not a sacrificial place for death. Remember that, for one day if you do not receive forgiveness you will have to answer to God our Father.
For those of you who struggle and suffer from post-abortion, there is a place where you can learn more about the baby that now resides with God. You can also gain a peace and forgiveness in your heart, and from God in Heaven, and be assured that as his arms are wrapped around the babies who have been aborted or miscarried. Each child knows you and loves you as their parents, and you will meet again.
For all those babies who are aborted and thrown out into the dumpsters as trash...God Bless those special people who collect them and give them a dignified burial. God Bless you.
Life is short, we're here a very short time--and gone in a wink of an eye. People who believe that this life is everything and then you die, I'm sorry.
To me, it's just a tiny stepping stone, to what lies ahead. An eternity in a place where you right this moment are deciding where you live eternity. Happiness, peace and everything heavenly and good; or struggle, sadness and discomfort...free will is ours - to decide.
God Bless these millions of innocent babies, and may they forever live with God, in peace and eternal happiness. God is great.
Posted by: Logan42 | Oct 16, 2009 1:52:35 PM
A woman't right to choose abortion is NO ONE'S business but her own. Murder should not enter into it as an ethics question. Overpopulation and children who are unwanted and abused AFTER they are here as people should be the delemma we need to address!
Posted by: Suzette Shelmire | Oct 2, 2009 9:30:20 AM
___________________________________
No one's business? Probably not. It's your own and the business of the other parent.
Murder should not enter it it? Why? Because you know how grave a sin this is on your soul...and you don't want to be reminded? Like religious teachings: It's true, what you do not know, whether it's because of stupidity or ignorance...God does not punish you for those sins....BUT..NOW that YOU read my post and are informed...YOU are responsible.
Those who abuse, neglect and mistreat children or any human being will have to answer to this as well. There is a great amount of abuse happening everyday and abortion is not going to stop it one bit. YOU cannot make the choice of whether or not you want to bring this baby that has already been conceived into this world, to put it to death--only God makes this decision, and you will suffer the consequences. Whether you ask forgiveness and repent, or whether you wait until judgement day...it's only your business. Here is YOUR CHOICE, the choice to confess and be sorry or the choice to burn in hell. Sorry to have to be so blunt.
Posted by: Logan42 | Oct 16, 2009 2:23:23 PM
I would like to see abortion represented for what it is, the killing of innocent unborn children.
I would like to see the party of death change its political platform to something more family friendly.
I pray for our president's salvation because he can kill babies by the stoke of his pen just as the congress can kill with just an "aye" vote.
Posted by: Ed Taylor | Oct 31, 2009 11:53:49 PM
A great site for post abortion stories is ForgivenMe, a Web site that helps support your post stress.
Posted by: Hue Mann | Nov 5, 2009 12:39:25 PM
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