California Residents Continue Supporting Abortions by Wide Margins 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 14, 2006
Sacramento, CA (LifeNews.com) — A new poll shows California residents continue to be an anomaly in a nation that generally opposes abortion and supports laws limiting the practice. A new Field Poll finds a majority of California residents back legal abortion and don’t want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.
Released on Tuesday, the poll finds 64 percent of adults and 70 percent of registered voters favor either no change in the current abortion law or want to make abortions even easier to obtain.
That’s roughly the same percentage of Californians who have supported legalized abortion over the last 20 year, putting the state out of step with the rest of the nation. Polls on abortion nationwide show roughly 55 percent of Americans oppose 97 percent of all abortions.
The Field Poll found support for abortion across all political, religious, and socioeconomic lines.
That frustrates pro-life groups working to put limits on abortion in place.
"When you talk about legislation, we don’t have a very good chance of getting more restrictions on abortion through legislation" in California, Louisa Millington, who represents the Diocese of San Bernardino on life issues, told the Desert Sun newspaper.
While some states such as South Dakota and Mississippi are approving legislation seeking to challenge and overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, 63 percent of California adults and 73 percent of registered voters said they opposed reversing it.
Last year, voters disapproved Proposition 73 on a 53 to 47 percent vote which would have allowed parents to know when their minor daughter is considering an abortion.
Groups organizing that proposal are putting together a second effort to try to get the ballot initiative approved.
A September Field Poll found 60 percent of California residents favor legal abortion during the first trimester, but falls to 30 percent after the first three months of pregnancy.
The new Field Poll interviewed 500 adults, including 343 registered voters and has a large 4.5 percent margin of error because of the small sample size.
