The evangelical obsession with outlawing abortion remains vastly out of step with the majority of Americans, according to new national polling by Pew Research.
This new data corresponds to other national polls, including those by Public Religion Research Institute, that show a majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal and available in many cases. Only a small percentage of the population agrees with the abortion abolitionist view held by the most extreme evangelicals and Republicans.
In polling conducted April 8-14, Pew found 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. This share has grown 4 points since the year before the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
While the Pew study found serious differences in attitudes about abortion among Republicans and Democrats, it found 41% of Republicans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Democrats are twice as likely (85%) to hold that view.
Two-thirds of moderate and liberal Republicans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That stands in contrast to the platform of the Republican Party and the stated desire of a majority of Republican elected officials.
White evangelical Protestants are nearly three times more likely (73%) to say abortion should be illegal than to say it should be legal (25%).
However, majorities of white nonevangelical Protestants (64%), Black Protestants (71%) and Catholics (59%) say abortion should be legal. And religiously unaffiliated Americans are even more likely (86%) to say this.
In other findings from the Pew poll:
- Only 25% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all cases.
- Even fewer (8%) say it should be illegal in all cases.
- 54% agree with the statement, “The decision about whether to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman.”
- 35% say the statement “human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights” describes their views extremely or very well, while 45% say it does not describe their views well.
- 32% of Americans say both the above statements about women’s decisions and embryos’ rights describe their views at least somewhat well.
- 54% say medication abortion should be legal, compared to 20% who say it should be illegal.
- 37% of Republicans say medication abortion should be legal, compared to 73% of Democrats.
Related articles:
Leave it to the states? Five takeaways about abortion attitudes in all 50 states | Analysis by Robert P. Jones
How the abortion debate blew up last week | Analysis by Steve Rabey
The war on abortion is now a war on birth control | Analysis by Kristen Thomason