40 Straight Gallup Polls: Majority Says Abortion Should Be Illegal in All or Most Cases

CNS ^ | July 3, 2018 | Terence P. Jeffrey

[xzins]

(Screen Capture/PBS)

(CNSNews.com) - In 40 straight Gallup polls over a span of 24 years, a majority of Americans have said that they believe abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.

In the latest Gallup survey examining the issue, which was conducted May 1-10, 53 percent said they believe abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances.

The Gallup survey asks this question: “Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?”

If the respondent says they believe abortion should be “legal only under certain circumstances,” Gallup asks this follow-up question: “Do you think abortion should be legal in most circumstances or only in a few circumstances?"

Since September 1994, Gallup has asked these questions in 40 polls. In every one of those 40 polls, the combined percentage of people who said they believe abortion should be illegal in “all circumstances” or legal “only in a few circumstances” has exceeded 50 percent.

The percentage who said that abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances hit a high of 63 percent in the poll that Gallup conducted on Aug. 12-13, 1997. In that survey, 22 percent said they thought abortion should be legal under any circumstances, 12 percent said it should be legal under most circumstances, 48 percent said it should be legal only in a few circumstances and 15 percent said it should be illegal in all circumstances.

Thus, in that survey, 63 percent (48 percent plus 15 percent) said abortion should be illegal in all but a few or all cases.

The lowest percentage of respondents who have told Gallup they believe abortion should be illegal in most or all circumstances was 51 percent—the percentages who took that position in surveys conducted Sept. 6-7, 1994 and Sept. 22-24, 1995.

Since 1995, the percentage has never dropped that low again.

In the latest survey in which Gallup asked the question, which was conducted May 1-10 of this year, 29 percent said they thought abortion should be legal under any circumstances, 14 percent said they thought it should be legal under most circumstances, 35 percent said they thought it should be legal only in a few circumstances, and 18 percent said they thought it should be illegal in all circumstances.

In the 40 polls in which Gallup has asked this question over the last 24 years, 57.58 percent of Americans on average have said they believe abortion should be illegal in all or all but a few cases.

[Drew68]

but you know what he does spend a lot of time thinking about? How his base feels about him

Trump's base is not monolithically anti-abortion. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that if you polled only those people who supported candidate Donald Trump in the primaries, you'd find that abortion consistently ranked near the bottom of issues they cared deeply about.

[IndispensableDestiny]

Read the actual poll data. It does not show that at all. It only contains three categories to start.

[cnsmom]

Next get rid of the drug addicts , disabled, elderly,and homeless, thanks Margaret Sanger.

[spudville]

No. But I think this makes it settled science. Or a consensus.

[Yaelle]

I don’t know how to interpret this. There are so many older women who revere abortion and feel it is something that means WOMAN WONDERFUL. They don’t themselves quite understand why. They are purely brainwashed. As if women ever wanted, without men, a way to kill their babies.

And many men appreciate sweeping their affairs under the rug this way.

But maybe a lot of people are not admitting this to survey takers.

[AuH2ORepublican]

“So 82% say legal sometimes, 18% never.”

---

I would have been with the 18% who answered “never” because I interpret the question to include within “never” an abortion ban with no specific exceptions but in which ending the newborn’s life unintentionally in an attempt to save the mother’s life would be permitted.

And the 35% who say that abortion should be illegal in “most” circumstances favor exceptions for things like cases of rape or incest, but some of them may have answered that way because they thought that an abortion law with an exception for the life of the mother would be a law that bans abortion in “most” cases.

In any event, anyone who wants abortion banned in all or most cases is in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, which prohibits states from banning abortion in “most” cases.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Any pollsters worth their salary can find the results they were paid to find.

I don't mean this is a mean way. It's true that you can get usable info from polling. But most people realize that your method of selection/randomizing and the wording of the questions can be tweaked this way or that to generate predictable results.

For instance, the same group that provides a majority saying they're "pro-choice" can, with other wording, agree that abortion is murder.

The same group that says they "support Roe vs Wade" can at the same time show majorities rejecting every separate provision of Roe vs Wade.

People calling themselves pro-choice can oppose 95% of abortions (those which are not for "rape, incest, life of the mother".)

People in favor of abortion for "fetal deformity" can be against abortion for "a baby with treatable health conditions."

It all depends on whom you ask, and how you ask it.

This should not be news to anyone.

[Mrs. Don-o]

18% always illegal vs 82% sometimes legal.

OR

53% almost always illegal vs 47% always or almost always legal.

Both based on the same stats (below).

See how important wording is?

On May 1-10 of this year, 29 percent said they thought abortion should be legal under any circumstances, 14 percent said they thought it should be legal under most circumstances, 35 percent said they thought it should be legal only in a few circumstances, and 18 percent said they thought it should be illegal in all circumstances.

[EdnaMode]

It’s crazy to think western Europe has stricter abortion laws than the US.

[EdnaMode]

Agreed. Meanwhile the pussy hat marchers think abortion was the only important issue of the election and Trump is going to ban abortion.

[Kickass Conservative]

>>>Ban late abortions; exceptions for rape, incest or health<<<

Health of whom, the Mother or the Baby?

Sounds like Murder with special circumstances.

Depending on Interpretation, Roe v Wade restricted Abortion based on Viability. The Justices divided Abortion Rights into Trimesters, with the third Trimester considered a time where the Fetus could live outside of a Woman’s Body.

Even though their thoughts and writings prove their idea that Roe v Wade was not Absolute, those facts never made it into the final Ruling.

Of course, there have been major improvements in the care and sustainability of Premature Babies as well as Studies that show a Fetus may experience Pain from an Abortion at 20 Weeks Gestation, a fact unknown back in 1973.

Roe v Wade was also brought to the SCOTUS under a false Premise that the Woman involved had been subjected to a Gang Rape and found herself Pregnant. That was found to be a Lie. It was just an Unplanned Pregnancy and had nothing to do with Rape, committed by one or Multiple Rapists.

Why is that never mentioned when a SCOTUS Nominee is attacked and grilled by the Rats in the Senate?

I invite FReepers to negate or validate my thoughts here. This is what I gathered from multiple Online sources.

[xzins]

That’s what i understood from the methodology. They further broke down one of the categories

[Salvation]

BTTT!

[zeestephen]

Close to 50 U.S. Senators have indicated that they will reject any Supreme Court nominee who wants to overturn Roe v. Wade.

That tells me they are not concerned about pro-life voters in their home states.

[xzins]

I agree with that.

However, as a moral measure of the nation, that number of senators says a lot.

Maybe its mene, mene, tekel, parsin

[MountainWalker]

That’s true. It’s also true that he wouldn’t be president without the Evangelical vote.

For me, the abortion issue is part and parcel of the restoration of the courts - whether we’re going to go back to real self-governance or some stripped down version of it within the left’s wacked out legal paradigm.

[TBP]

And yet we’re told that the new Supreme Court nominee had better not be pro-life.

[xzins]

My memory says they’re not supposed to discuss with the senate any cases that might come before them. Is that correct?

[IrishBrigade]

‘Are polls valid when they support our viewpoint and invalid when they don’t?’

yes, in all circumstances...

[IrishBrigade]

‘Poor graph two colors are too close to be sure what they reflect.’

yep, you can say that again...