51% of Americans describe themselves as ‘pro-life’ in poll

May 16, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times

At a time when President Barack Obama is trying to convince opponents in the abortion battle that they can find middle ground — in rhetoric, if not reality — a new Gallup Poll shows that more Americans describe themselves as “pro-life.”

For the first time since it began asking the question in 1995, the Gallup Poll reported Thursday, 51 percent of the American adults questioned for its annual Values and Beliefs survey said that when it comes to abortion, they consider themselves “pro-life.” Forty-two percent consider themselves “pro-choice.” (There is a three-point margin of error.)

This finding, noted Gallup, represents a significant shift from years past. As recently as last year, 50 percent of respondents called themselves “pro-choice,” while 44 percent identified themselves as “pro-life.”

Moderate and conservative Republicans accounted for the change; Democratic attitudes toward abortion remained constant. “It is possible,” said Gallup in its analysis, that the president “has pushed the public’s understanding of what it means to be ‘pro-choice’ slightly to the left, politically.”

Also, in a shift, there is a convergence in the number of Americans who hold what Gallup called “extreme views” on abortion. Those are people who say abortion should always be illegal (23 percent) and people who say it should never be illegal (22 percent). Previously, more people thought abortion should always be legal.

On what Gallup calls “the middle option” — that abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances — the number has remained steady at 53 percent since 1975.

“I am pretty confident that Americans really don’t want Roe v. Wade overturned,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. The larger number of Americans calling themselves “pro-life,” she said, “doesn’t square with what has happened in the last several elections.”

Keenan cited the rejection of abortion bans by voters in politically conservative South Dakota in 2006 and 2008, and the failure of five other anti-abortion ballot measures in California, Oregon and Colorado since 2005.

But anti-abortion activists think they have more than the new poll on their side. “This isn’t new,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. “It tracks pretty much with what we’ve always known: People generally are ‘pro-life’ depending on how you ask the question.”