By Dave Andrusko

Part Three discusses the assisted suicide numbers coming out of the state of Washington. Please send your thoughts on Part One, Two, or Three to daveandrusko@gmail.com. Please follow me on http://twitter.com/daveha

The latest data from Gallup on the abortion issue is fascinating on many levels. The headline and subhead tell one intriguing story—“Republicans', Dems' Abortion Views Grow More Polarized: Republicans have grown more conservative on abortion since 1975; Democrats, more liberal.” [www.gallup.com/poll/126374/Republicans-Dems-Abortion-Views-Grow-Polarized.aspx] But there are more, as we shall soon see.

According to Lydia Saad, 25, 35 years ago Democrats and Republicans held “similar outlooks on abortion.” That similarity began to change in 1990 “and by 2009, more Republicans believed abortion should be illegal than broadly legal (by a 21-point margin), while the reverse was true among Democrats (by 19 points).”

To be specific, 33% of Republicans told Gallup that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances versus 12% who said abortion should be legal in all circumstances. Conversely, 31% of Democrats said abortion should be legal in all circumstances versus 12% who responded abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Gallup offers no explanation or hypotheses.

What’s really interesting is the “more stable” opinion of self-described Independents. Saad says, “While most take the middle position, independents favoring the availability of legal abortion under any circumstances have consistently outnumbered those who favor keeping it illegal in all circumstances (albeit by a dwindling margin in recent years).”

Talk about understatement! In 1990 a whopping 37% of Independents said abortion should be legal in all circumstances against 10% who said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances—a difference of 27%.
By 2009 20% of Independents said abortion should be legal in all circumstances versus 17% who responded abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. The difference was down to 3%--a huge change!

Although Saad doesn’t write about it here, it is worth remembering that she had this to say in 2002: “It is worth highlighting that in July 1996, coincident with the emergence of a new national debate over partial-birth abortion, Gallup recorded a significant drop in the number of Americans saying abortion should be legal in all cases. Since then, the percentage favoring unrestricted abortions has averaged just 25%, down from about 33% in the previous five years.” (“Public Opinion About Abortion -- An In-Depth Review.” www.gallup.com/poll/9904/Public-Opinion-About-Abortion-InDepth-Review.aspx) In other words support for the "always legal" position began to deteriorate coincided with NRLC’s campaign to ban partial-birth abortions.

One other thought in two parts. First, Saad also writes, “Among all Americans, the dominant view over the past 3 ½ decades has been the moderate ‘legal only under certain circumstances’ position. Several changes occurred during the 1980s and 1990s in the balance of preferences for the two extreme views--always legal vs. always illegal--but in 2009, attitudes were back to their original 1975 levels.”

This is true as far as it goes, sort of. If you give people a more refined range of options ( for example, if you break down “certain circumstances,” which is awfully broad), you quickly find that a majority of the American people opposes the reasons offered for more than 90% of the 1.3 million abortions performed on unborn children annually.

So it quite true that 55% answered the Gallup question by checking off “only under certain circumstances,” but that tells much less than is actually there.

Second that 55% “only under certain circumstances” was 53% in 2006. No big change, right? Well in 2006 30% said abortion should be legal in all circumstances. In 2009 that figure had shrunk to 21%. But the number of all Americans who said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances jumped from 15% to 20%.

It would be fair to say in terms of their opinion on abortion that Republicans and Independents are becoming more pro-life. But likewise, as we wrote about in this space, last May for the first time since Gallup began asking the question, a majority of Americans self-identified as pro-life.

As reported/interpreted by Saad at the time, 51% of Americans describe "themselves 'pro-life' on the issue of abortion and 42% 'pro-choice.'" In 2008 the numbers were virtually reversed: 50% were pro-choice and 44% pro-life. Gains were especially pronounced among Republicans. But there was majority pro-life sentiment expressed by both sexes as well as by Protestants and Catholics, according to Saad, reflecting similar strong gains.

The numbers have bounced around, but the pro-life trend lines are unmistakable.

Saad says this is the first of a three-part series “reviewing long-term changes in Americans' abortion views. Parts 2 and 3 will review trends by gender, age, age cohorts (in which Gallup follows each age group in the trend data as its members age, beginning in 1975), and other population subgroups.”

I will, of course, alert you when the next part of the series is published.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Three
Part One