Posted on 01/03/2017 2:01:31 PM PST by SeekAndFind
More than 40 years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, 69% of Americans say the historic ruling, which established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, should not be completely overturned. Nearly three-in-ten (28%), by contrast, would like to see it overturned.
Public opinion about the 1973 case has held relatively steady in recent decades, though the share saying the decision should not be overturned is up slightly from four years ago. In January 2013, 63% said this, which was similar to views measured in surveys conducted over the prior two decades.
Democrats have long been more likely than Republicans to say Roe v. Wade should not be overturned, but the partisan gap has grown wider over time. Today, 84% of Democrats and those who lean Democratic say the Supreme Court should not completely overturn the ruling, up 9 percentage points from 2013 and 18 points from 1992. A narrow 53% majority of Republicans now say the decision should not be completely overturned, little changed in recent years.
Support for upholding the Roe v. Wade decision is widely shared among liberal Democrats (87% of whom say it should not be completely overturned) and conservative and moderate Democrats (82%).
While a 57% majority of conservative Republicans and leaners think the Supreme Court should overturn the decision, just 27% of moderate and liberal Republicans say the same. In fact, 71% of moderate and liberal Republicans think the court should not completely overturn Roe v. Wade.
Views on the case also vary significantly by education and religious affiliation.
Majorities across all levels of education say the court should not overturn Roe v. Wade. Still, higher levels of education are associated with less support for overturning the decision: Nearly nine-in-ten of those with postgraduate degrees (88%) say the court should not overturn the decision, compared with about seven-in-ten of those with a college degree (74%) or some college experience (70%) and 62% of those with a high school diploma or less education.
Among all Protestants, nearly two-thirds say the Supreme Court should not overturn the decision (63%), while 35% think it should be overturned. But white evangelical Protestants are more divided than other Protestants: 49% think the case should not be overturned, compared with 47% who say it should.
By contrast, an overwhelming majority of those who are religiously unaffiliated (89%) think the court should not overturn Roe v. Wade, while just 9% think the case should be completely overturned.
There are no significant differences in opinion on Roe v. Wade by gender: A majority of women and men both say the court should not completely overturn the decision. Younger adults (73%) are slightly more likely than older adults (64%) to say the decision should not be overturned, though majorities of both age groups say this.
Support for maintaining Roe v. Wade is somewhat higher than broader measures of public support for legal abortion, but the overall patterns of opinion are similar. In October, 59% of the public said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 37% who said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
While a steady majority has said abortion should be legal in recent years, support in October was as high as it had been in two decades. Still, as with views of Roe v. Wade, the partisan gap in support for legal abortion has grown wider in recent years. While 79% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, just 34% of Republicans say the same.
At least half of that 69% have not a clue what it is.
Count me, my husband, and all of my family as being in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.
This is why our system of governance is built on the notion of individual liberties being more important than the whim of the majority. The right to live trumps the tyranny of the majority.
You can vote with God or you can takes sides against him.
God votes pro-life.
It is not smart to take sides against him.
Did they poll teachers and faculty lounges?
I call BS on this
Roe v Wade was a demonic coup, complete with characteristics lies and fabrications, resulting in one of the most evil precedents ever in human history. ... And dead soul people love it! You want to discern the spiritual state of someone, discuss the evil Roe court decision.
So what? The left has been repudiating popular consensus for at least 8 years.
Question wording is everything. Overturning Roe is not prohibiting abortion.
Try doing a poll using language like “do you favor killing babies in the womb,” and then try doing a poll using sonogram photos of babies in the womb and connect it with Roe v Wade.
Watch support for this abominable law plummet when the truth about abortion is known.
And Trump is behind by 20 points.
There is something called game theory. People adjust to the new rules. In Tallahassee they did a traffic study and determined they would make x million dollars if they put in traffic cameras to catch people running red lights. They installed the cameras and, instantly, people adjusted their behavior to the new reality. The cameras never came close to paying for themselves and operated at a deficit every year until they were removed. The same is true of abortion. Since abortions became legal there have been almost 60 million of them in the US. This is a staggering number. The ghosts of Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin must be slapping their foreheads and exclaiming, “Gosh, if we’d called it woman’s health care we’d still be in business.” Make abortion illegal, or extremely expensive and people would instantly adjust to the new reality and not get pregnant. Pregnant women would, instead put babies up for adoption. (Adoption is something that needs to be fixed, too. It is ridiculously expensive, probably as a way of forcing abortions.)
You are generous.
Overturning Roe v Wade only returns the abortion issue to the states. It will then be up to the states to decide. If the states put it on the ballot, I guess the people would have a chance to speak.
No, they weasel their way to the headline by lumping Republicans who say the statute should not be “completely” overturned in with the leftists who want it preserved entirely. Presumably, there is some fraction of Republicans who want *most* of the statute overturned, leaving some provision for extremely dire circumstances or the like. Take that bunch out, and the number of Repubs who want to keep the statute in its entirety probably shrinks to a single-digit percentage if not less.
Argumentum ad populum. It’s all they’ve got.
Are these the same people who did the polls who said Hillary Clinton was going to win the election..I THOUGHT SO. Wrong.
That’s written up as if there’s any remaining credibility to polling.
It’s all agenda driven and has been for a long time.
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