May 13, 2010

By Gunter N. Franz, Ph.D.

Gallup's Lydia Saad has retrospectively analyzed a series of Gallup polls that started in 1975. Each time the poll asked three questions (subsequently expanded to four) about attitudes on abortion: should abortion be (1) "legal under any circumstances," (2) "legal only under certain circumstances," or (3) "illegal in all circumstances."

In this particular study, published online April 28, Saad restricted the review to answers to question #1: should abortion be "legal under any circumstances," The yearly data were averaged over five-year periods and investigated in terms educational level and gender of the poll respondents.

For 1975-1979, 36% of college graduates favored unrestricted abortions, as did 28% with "some college" education, and 17% of high school graduates.

Note that college graduates were twice as likely as high school graduates to favor the extreme pro-abortion position--one is tempted to observe that for some too much education is a dangerous thing.

The pro-abortion sentiment peaked in 1990-1994, with 44% of college graduates expressing it, as opposed to 37% of the "some college" group and 25% of high school graduates. By 2005-2009, support for the extreme pro-abortion position had declined by nearly a third to levels seen in the seventies: 31% for college graduates, 26% for "some college," and 18% for high school graduates.

The reasons for the decline since the mid-nineties have been discussed in a previous commentary: (1) The change in women's attitude about abortion, as shown by the continuous decline of the abortion rate (abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age) since 1980-81. (2) NRLC's campaign to outlaw partial-birth abortions starting in the mid-nineties. (3) The routine use of ultrasound imaging in pregnancy.

For the interpretation of the poll results, it is important to make a distinction between opinion as expressed in polls and actual behavior as documented in abortion statistics. Although the above shows that college graduates are most likely to favor extreme abortion rights, they are the least likely to have abortions, as a just published study by the Guttmacher Institute demonstrates: only about 20% of women having abortions are college graduates (most of those having abortions are unmarried).

In contrast, those with "some college" or associate degrees have about 40% of all abortions. Those with high school education have 28% of all abortions.(Women who have not completed high school account for 12% of abortions.)

One could also falsely infer that a poll showing college graduates more in favor of abortion than any other group, indicates that the economically well off have the most abortions. In fact, as the Guttmacher study shows, 42% of all abortions performed in 2008 were on women below the federal poverty level. In 2000 the proportion of abortion patients who were poor was 27%-- meaning there has been an increase of almost 60% in eight years.

Obviously, at least some in the welfare bureaucracy consider abortion a money-saving tool to deal with pregnancy. The discrepancy between the pro-abortion opinion of a fairly large segment of the well-educated and their reluctance to have abortion themselves may be traced, at least in part, to eugenicist attitudes: it is better if the poor do not reproduce.

The pattern--rising from 1975-1979 levels to a peak in the 1990-1994 period and then declining to back to the early levels by 2005-2009--is repeated if the data are analyzed by gender, age, and party affiliation. However, there were exceptions.

By 2005-2009 some groups were back to their peak levels in support of extreme abortion rights: (1) those aged 50-64 at the time of polling, (2) women Democrats (in contrast to Republicans and Independents), and (3) most of all, Democratic men, whose support of extreme abortion rights (30% in 1990-1994) actually increased (to 34% in 2005-2009)--along with the increased radicalization of the Democratic Party.

Dr. Franz will be giving a workshop on "Abortion Statistics and Opinion Polls" at the NRL Convention in Pittsburgh.

Please also be sure to read "National Right to Life News Today" (www.nationalrighttolifenewstoday.org) and please send all your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part One
Part Two