WASHINGTON (ABP) — Conservative groups are hailing — and some pro-choice commentators are questioning — a new Gallup poll that finds a majority of Americans now describe themselves as “pro-life.”
The figures, released May 15 from a survey conducted May 7-10, show a self-described pro-life majority for the first time since Gallup started asking the question in 1995 as part of its annual Values and Beliefs Survey. Of the 1,015 adults surveyed, 51 percent described themselves as “pro-life” while 42 percent said they were “pro-choice.”
Previous “pro-life” peaks — in 2001 and again in 2002 — were at 46 percent.
Even with the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, the increase in self-described pro-lifers and corresponding decrease in self-described pro-choicers represent a statistically significant reversal compared to the 2008 figures. Last year, 50 percent of respondents described themselves as pro-choice, while only 44 percent said they were pro-life.
Graphic courtesy Gallup Organization.
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Groups opposed to abortion rights seized, in particular, on Gallup’s analysis that President Obama’s strong support for abortion rights — including rollbacks of some of the anti-abortion-rights policies of his predecessor — may have spurred a backlash.
“It is possible that, through his abortion policies, Obama has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be ‘pro-choice’ slightly to the left, politically. While Democrats may support that, as they generally support everything Obama is doing as president, it may be driving others in the opposite direction," the analysis said.
“This dramatic shift of more people becoming pro-life did not happen in a vacuum. In the last two decades, ultrasounds have made people aware that abortion kills a baby, and women have been vocal about regretting their abortion. But the most significant development in the last year is that America has the most pro-abortion president in our history,” said a statement from Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. “Ironically, Obama’s radical abortion policies and nominees may have helped make America more pro-life.”
However, when it came to the separate question of whether abortion should be legal, the survey found that a majority of Americans — 53 percent — believe abortion should be legal “under certain circumstances.” That figure in Gallup polls has remained fairly constant — between around 50 and 60 percent of Americans — since 1975.
Views of abortion’s legality, the survey found, shifted most significantly in the anti-abortion-rights direction at the extremes of the abortion debate. The most recent figures found 23 percent of respondents said abortion should be illegal “in all circumstances,” while 22 percent said it should be legal in every case.
Last year, those who supported abortion rights under all circumstances significantly outnumbered those who opposed all legal abortions, 28 percent to 17 percent.
Some social scientists and other analysts have cautioned against placing too much emphasis on a single survey or on the labels of “pro-life” and “pro-choice.” In a May 15 blog post analyzing the Gallup poll results on the Atlantic Monthly website, Chris Good pointed to other recent polls that found higher support for the “pro-choice” label — including a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted in late April that found pro-choicers outnumbering pro-lifers 49 to 45 percent. That poll, Good noted, had a sample size almost double that of the recent Gallup poll.
“[I]t's important to look beyond the self-identification of ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice,’” he asserted. “The abortion debate in America is about policy, not about those words — they do not encapsulate, for instance, whether a majority want abortion to be legal for pregnant women whose lives [are] threatened by the pregnancy in the third trimester. Some people who call themselves ‘pro-life’ might say abortion should be legal in that case.”
Good pointed to other recent surveys by respected polling agencies that asked about abortion rights in different ways, showing that at least a plurality of Americans could still be described as favoring abortion rights. For instance, an April poll by Quinnipiac University found 37 percent of Americans saying abortion should be “usually legal” and only 27 saying it should be “usually illegal.”
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Robert Marus is managing editor and Washington bureau chief for Associated Baptist Press.