Gallup Poll: 54% of Americans Want All or Most Abortions Made Illegal

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 12, 2017   |   4:03PM   |   Washington, DC

Gallup is out with new National polling data on the issue of abortion and the results are generally unchanged from the findings of previous years.

Typically the Gallup poll has found in majority of Americans oppose all or most abortions even though some Americans who technically take a pro-life position opposing abortion wrongly think they are supposedly pro-choice.

In the past, the Gallup survey has found that roughly half or just over half of Americans oppose all or almost all abortions. The newest polling data is no different.

Gallup itself highlighted the stability of how Americans view of the legality of abortion: “Stability remains the name of the game in U.S. abortion attitudes.”

In fact the latest poll finds just 29% believe abortion should be legal and all circumstances or as a combined 68% of Americans believe or abortion should either be illegal in all circumstances or legal only under certain circumstances.

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“Half of Americans say abortion should be “legal only under certain circumstances,” identical to a year ago, while 29% still say it should be legal in all circumstances,” it notes.

The half of Americans who believe abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances is the block of respondents that matters the most because there is a real question about what those circumstances are. Gallop investigated further and found the most of those people one abortion allowed only in a few rare circumstances rather than in most circumstances. Looking at the numbers differently, Gallup indicates that a majority of Americans believe abortion should be totally illegal or mostly illegal whereas only 42% Americans want abortion to be totally legal or illegal in most circumstances.

“Gallup also asks those who say abortion should be legal in certain circumstances whether those should be most circumstances or only a few, and, by nearly a 3-to-1 ratio, they choose only a few, 36% vs. 13%. Thus, the slight majority of Americans (54%) favor curtailing abortion rights — saying abortion should be illegal or legal in only a few circumstances. Slightly fewer, 42%, want access to abortion to be unrestricted or legal in most circumstances,” Gallup notes.

Other findings validate the notion that more Americans are pro-life:

Slightly more U.S. adults today believe the procedure is morally wrong (49%) than morally acceptable (43%). This has also been the case in most readings since Gallup started tracking this annually in 2001.

The majority of Republicans think abortion should be legal in only certain circumstances, and solid majorities call it morally wrong and consider themselves pro-life. By contrast, the largest segment of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all circumstances, while solid majorities consider abortion morally acceptable and call themselves pro-choice.

Political independents fall between the two major parties on these measures, although they come a bit closer to Republicans than to Democrats in their choice of abortion labels.