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New Poll Shows Americans Overwhelmingly Agree On Abortion

Alex Pfeiffer White House Correspondent
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A Marist poll released Tuesday commissioned by the Knights of Columbus shows that despite the popular narrative that America is split on abortion, nearly eight in 10 Americans support some abortion restrictions.

This was the eighth such poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, which is seeking to understand the policy positions behind the labels of “pro-life” and “pro-choice.”

While the percentage of Americans identifying as pro-choice or pro-life has hovered around 50 percent, this Marist poll shows that 81 percent of Americans, including two out of three pro-choice supporters, want abortion restrictions. This support was regardless of gender, with 82 percent of women agreeing that abortion should be restricted to, at most, the first three months of pregnancy.

“When we think or hear about American’s opinions on abortion, the debate is too often reduced to the percentage who identify with the labels ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice,’ Patrick Kelly, vice president for public policy for the Knights of Columbus, told reporters Tuesday. “It is certainly easy to think that way, but it is neither accurate nor helpful, nor in fact does it represent reality.”

The telephone poll of 1,686 adults, which was conducted Nov. 15-22, 2015, shows 68 percent of Americans, including 69 percent of women, oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. A majority of people who self-identified as “pro-choice” also opposed tax dollars going to abortion.

Only 8 percent believed abortion should be available during the first six months of pregnancy, and 12 percent during any time in a woman’s pregnancy.

Among millennials, support of abortion restrictions remained strong, 76 percent. Sixty percent — and a third of “pro-choice” Americans — also believed that abortion was morally wrong (60 percent).

“We’ve been told for as long as I can remember that abortion is a 50/50 proposition, an intractable issue, an issue that cannot be solved, an issue on which there is no consensus. … The fact of the matter is, it’s something different. There is this huge consensus that is obvious if you look at the data, but it requires you to go beyond the narrative to look at the data,” said Andrew Walther, vice president for media, research and development for the Knights of Columbus.

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Alex Pfeiffer