Abortion (Legal or Illegal Views)

[Major_Kong]

What percentage of Americans support abortion? What percentage to make it illegal?

[Essured]

The public opinion polls for 2001, reproduced here were the most recent percentages I could find for the US.

[Walloon]

That link above misrepresents the results of the ABC News/Washington Post opinion poll of January 2001:

A BBC News report for 2001-JAN-23 summarized what it called a “new” ABC News - Washington Post poll of American adults which “suggests that most Americans are broadly supportive of current abortion laws.”

ABC News/Washington Post actually said,

Twenty-eight years after the U.S. Supreme Court made abortion legal, although some Americans support abortion in very rare circumstances, most Americans oppose the overwhelming number of abortions.

Generally, 59 percent say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a
number that’s held fairly steady the last several years — however a majority opposes legal abortion if it’s performed solely to end an unwanted pregnancy, which constitutes most abortions.

Quite a difference!

[Keeve]

Thanks, Walloon. Great example of how important it is to phrase these things accurately.

(For those who have trouble seeing the difference between the original poll vs. the way BBC reported it, my take is that while it is true that most Americans support the current laws, they don’t like the way those laws are being used.)