National Poll: 61% of Americans Want All or Almost All Abortions Made Illegal

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 20, 2019   |   1:15PM   |   Washington, DC

A new national poll finds that 61% of Americans want all or almost all abortions made illegal.

A poll conducted by the Morning Consult research firm finds most Americans want abortions to be made illegal either in all cases or in very rare cases such as rape or incest or win the pregnancy directly threatens the life of the mother. Those cases constitute less than 2 or 3% of all abortions, meaning that most Americans support making virtually all abortions illegal.

The poll found 3% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all cases and another 45% believe abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape or incest or a risk to the mother’s life. Another 5% believe abortion should only be legal in cases of rape or incest and another 8% believe abortion should only be legal in cases of a direct risk to the life of the mother.

That entire subset of voters constitutes 61% of Americans taking a pro-life position against abortion while only 27% of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal only after the baby can survive outside the womb and another 12% did not know where they stood on abortions.

The poll found little difference in the abortion attitudes of women and men as 60% of women favored making all or almost all abortions illegal while 61% of men agreed.

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The poll also found 51% of Americans believe human life either begins at conception or when an unborn baby’s heartbeat is capable of being detected at 6 weeks, the basis of heartbeat abortion bans. Only 13% of Americans believe human life begins at birth.

And it found 47% of the respondents said abortion goes against their moral beliefs and 39% said it does not go against their moral beliefs.

The survey included 2,200 respondents and was carried out May 28-30. It has a margin of error or plus or minus 2 percentage points.