Poll Shows Black Pro-Life Voters Still Largely Support Pro-Abortion Candidates 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 26, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A new poll finds that black pro-life voters are more likely to support Republican candidates than African-American voters overall, but that they still tend to vote for Democrats. The survey also found that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to oppose abortion and embryonic stem cell research than white Americans.
Americas Majority released the results of a groundbreaking new survey on Wednesday involving 3,292 African American voters.
Although notable exceptions exist, Republican candidates, especially for president, tend to oppose abortion while Democratic candidates tend to support it. The survey found that black voters are more likely to support Republican candidates because of the abortion issue.
On the issue of abortion, the number of black voters voting for Republican candidates jumped 6.6 percent when the candidate is pro-life.
Looked at it another way, 87 percent of black Americans voted for pro-abortion candidate John Kerry for president in 2004 but 70.6 percent of pro-life black voters did as well.
That gave President Bush a boost of 16.4 percent among pro-life black voters but they still supported a pro-abortion candidate by overwhelming margins.
"In fact, African Americans are more conservative than their white counterparts on numerous issues, including abortion," Americas Majority press secretary John Altevogt told LifeNews.com in a statement. "Yet, as our research shows, African Americans who are pro-life … regularly vote for candidates who share none of these views."
On average, pro-life African Americans were much less likely to side with Republican candidates than white Americans.
Asked which party they trusted to protect the right to life of unborn children, 22.3% pro-life blacks said they trusted the GOP, 35.9 percent said Democrats, 25.8 percent said neither and 16 percent didn’t know.
That compares with 43.5 percent of pro-life white Americans who trusted the GOP, only 13.6 percent who trusted Democrats, 29.7 percent who said neither and 13.2 percent who didn’t know.
Author Richard Nadler puts the blame squarely on the Republican Party.
"The data show that the GOP has failed utterly to communicate even its most basic
platform positions to the majority of African American voters," he said. "But among those African Americans who do associate conservative positions with the Republican Party, GOP vote share increases dramatically."
The study involved 10,952 Americans regardless of race and it found that blacks and Hispanics were more likely to oppose abortion than their white counterparts.
The survey is at odds with many others showing a 55-45 percent pro-life to pro-abortion split among Americans. The America’s majority poll found a 57-42 split in favor of abortion.
About 42 percent of black Americans and 51 percent of Hispanics opposed abortion in all or most cases while 41 percent of white voters took that pro-life position.
On the issue of embryonic stem cell research the same contrast appeared.
While 48.4 percent of white Americans back embryonic stem cell research, just 40.9 percent of Hispanics and only 37.3 percent of black Americans do.
The Americas Majority Foundation Voter Opinion Survey (AMF-VOS) polled 10,952 voters online between January 30 and February 18 of 2007 in partnership with MarketTools, Inc. Included among the respondents were 3,292 African American voters.
