Posted on 01/03/2017 2:01:31 PM PST by SeekAndFind
More than 40 years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, 69% of Americans say the historic ruling, which established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, should not be completely overturned. Nearly three-in-ten (28%), by contrast, would like to see it overturned.
Public opinion about the 1973 case has held relatively steady in recent decades, though the share saying the decision should not be overturned is up slightly from four years ago. In January 2013, 63% said this, which was similar to views measured in surveys conducted over the prior two decades.
Democrats have long been more likely than Republicans to say Roe v. Wade should not be overturned, but the partisan gap has grown wider over time. Today, 84% of Democrats and those who lean Democratic say the Supreme Court should not completely overturn the ruling, up 9 percentage points from 2013 and 18 points from 1992. A narrow 53% majority of Republicans now say the decision should not be completely overturned, little changed in recent years.
Support for upholding the Roe v. Wade decision is widely shared among liberal Democrats (87% of whom say it should not be completely overturned) and conservative and moderate Democrats (82%).
While a 57% majority of conservative Republicans and leaners think the Supreme Court should overturn the decision, just 27% of moderate and liberal Republicans say the same. In fact, 71% of moderate and liberal Republicans think the court should not completely overturn Roe v. Wade.
Views on the case also vary significantly by education and religious affiliation.
Majorities across all levels of education say the court should not overturn Roe v. Wade. Still, higher levels of education are associated with less support for overturning the decision: Nearly nine-in-ten of those with postgraduate degrees (88%) say the court should not overturn the decision, compared with about seven-in-ten of those with a college degree (74%) or some college experience (70%) and 62% of those with a high school diploma or less education.
Among all Protestants, nearly two-thirds say the Supreme Court should not overturn the decision (63%), while 35% think it should be overturned. But white evangelical Protestants are more divided than other Protestants: 49% think the case should not be overturned, compared with 47% who say it should.
By contrast, an overwhelming majority of those who are religiously unaffiliated (89%) think the court should not overturn Roe v. Wade, while just 9% think the case should be completely overturned.
There are no significant differences in opinion on Roe v. Wade by gender: A majority of women and men both say the court should not completely overturn the decision. Younger adults (73%) are slightly more likely than older adults (64%) to say the decision should not be overturned, though majorities of both age groups say this.
Support for maintaining Roe v. Wade is somewhat higher than broader measures of public support for legal abortion, but the overall patterns of opinion are similar. In October, 59% of the public said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 37% who said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.
While a steady majority has said abortion should be legal in recent years, support in October was as high as it had been in two decades. Still, as with views of Roe v. Wade, the partisan gap in support for legal abortion has grown wider in recent years. While 79% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, just 34% of Republicans say the same.
I’d love to see the ambient question field. These questionnaire questions are seldom asked in isolation. Probably something about support for “womym’s righs” to soften the respondent. We’d be depicted as “haters” and “misogynists” if we answered “incorrectly.”
A poll? Really? How is this news?
Hey, Pew! Who did you have leading the presidential race on Nov 7?
Keep dreaming. It should go back the States.
Actually, scratch that. It looks like the article is presenting “don’t want it completely overturned” as being “oppose overturning”. I’d bet good money that if the question were rephrased to “overturn entirely”, the numbers for libs and conservatives would drop significantly; I suspect that a large chunk of conservatives favor overturning at least *nearly* all of the verdict, with some leaving a rump decision allowing abortion under only a small set of circumstances, and a good fraction of the left would support imposing at least some restrictions on abortion as well.
The funny part is that these are the same people that produced polls that HilLiary was winning and would win.
The poll is a referendum on American ignorance of the Constitution. I would bet that not one in ten supporters of Roe v Wade could give an explanation of how it relates to any provision of the actual Constitution.
Public opinion, regardless what it is, will never dissuade me from opposing the unbridled murder of infants.
>> 69% of Americans say the historic ruling, which established a woman’s constitutional right to abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, should not be completely overturned.
Too vague. This takes advantage for the “incest and rape” lie to permit people to believe that incest and rape make up a significant number of abortions. It also adds in the “first trimester only” people with the “abortion anytime for any reason” zealots.
The left has been repudiating popular consensus as long as they’ve existed (when it doesn’t go along with their radical agenda).
Does anyone believe any poll on any subject anymore? This is all propaganda folks. Believe only what you see and touch.
You are spot on with that assertion.
All they know about Row v. Wade are the lies that the leftist media spouts.
Seriously, most people think that if Roe were overturned, all abortion nationwide would be outlawed.
Of course, the poll doesn't indicated anything about what would actually happen - returned to the states.
Well I’ll bet you 8 and 10 or 9 and 10 said that marriage should be between a man or a woman but that didn’t stop the Supreme Court did it?
There is a percentage of the population that favors no penalty for murder; shall we strike laws against murder?
Obviously not.
Just because this example has a smaller population percentage than those that want to keep RVW, it does not make it right.
Bingo. Also the same pollsters who find the Obamanation is still VERY popular...
As America has become more secular and less religious, abortion is now considered a medical procedure by the a great many Americans, probably a majority and certainly among women.... Got to face the facts
Even women who would not personally have an abortion would often choose to have the procedure be available as an option and not to have the act of abortion criminalized
The issues are, at what point does it go beyond being a medical procedure and become an act that terminates viable life?
And who pays for it- the individual? or the government? Or the government forcing it to be paid and performed by individuals regardless of their religious beliefs
Anyone who grandstands on overturning Roe V Wade or banning abortion, is just that- grandstanding. They will not be elected to office for proposing to ban a medical procedure that many women believe may in some cases be necessary and a matter of personal choice between a women, her doctor, and her God
The only way to reduce it is through educating the population in morality issues and persuasion on that basis, so that the individual makes a choice against it. Laws will not change women’s hearts. May only harden them.
And letting the States impose such restrictions, rules and limits that their residents will legislatively support
I think this is where this administration will be on this issue
I think this is just fact
Maybe that is because 70% of American’s have not the slightest idea how their government is supposed to work.
If Roe v Wade is overturned it would be up to the individual state to deal with how abortions would be handled. Abortion would not be suddenly illegal across the US.
A little known fact is that abortion was legal in New York prior to the Roe v. Wade decision.
Democrats want to kill babies, most of them Black. “You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”
With abortion and many other issues, it’s all in the way you frame the question. I can run a poll at any mall or busy street corner and get most any response you want.
Abortion is an extreme case of this. The abortion topic makes people uncomfortable for two reasons. Abortion itself is a grisly topic. Also abortion is politically divisive.
When most people feel uncomfortable they will give whatever response eases the discomfort. That is the key to driving any poll on any issue. Structure the poll to make people feel uncomfortable. Then give them an easy way to relieve the stress.
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