A recent poll by Marist, commissioned by the Catholic civic organization, the Knights of Columbus (Knights) shows unexpected unity between self-described pro-life and pro-abortion Americans. Both sides are distinctly in favor of increased restrictions on abortion.
The new poll reveals that almost 76% of Americans – including Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, support “significant” restrictions on abortion, such as a ban on 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions.
The poll also gives a clear indication of the fundamental differences between pro-life, and pro-abortion Americans. 51% of respondents were identified Pro-abortion, whereas 44% were Pro-Life. The additional 4% were unsure of their position. Within this, self-identification process there were found to be many variations within party, with 25% of Democrats saying that they were pro-life and 22% of Republicans being Pro-abortion. Whereas Independents were 55% pro-abortion and 41% pro-life, with 4% remaining unsure of their position.
Marist went on to ask when the option for abortion be available, with options throughout the pregnancy, first three months, first six months only in the rape cases, incest or under no circumstances. Most noticeably, the poll never provided the option beyond three and six months, suggesting that the data was not capturing a full range of the preferences of the audiences.
A huge 76% went on to select one of the last 4 options, which was defined by the KoC as the “significant restrictions on abortions,” 12% were of the people were of the belief that the abortion should be available anytime throughout the pregnancy. This 12% included a 21% of both the self-identified pro-abortion and Democrats.
Going even deeper, then the breakdown of when should abortion be allowed, the survey included a number of questions which were related to abortion. Most noticeable were the 63% Americans who supported the 20-week abortion ban very much like that passed by the House last year. This 20-week ban was further supported by the Democrats – experiencing an increase to 56% from 49 last year.
Andrew Walther – vice President of the Knights of Columbus, in a statement said that the poll clearly showed that the Americans should focus on very different abortion debates than it is currently having.
“What you see here is that the broad consensus means that the debate should be changing,” Walther said. “We shouldn’t be having these debates about, it’s all or nothing, because when you look at this, that’s twelve% and eight% of the population respectively think it’s all or nothing. The vast majority, if we actually start this debate in terms of where the consensus is, things could get done that everybody would agree on. And most people that consider themselves on one side or the other of this debate that 50-50 proposition with the labels, most of those people could actually be satisfied with a debate that began with the consensus.”
