Gallup Polling Data Shows Pro-Life Trend

Gallup has shown that the number of people who support abortion under any circimustances has consistently declined over time. In fact, the age generational difference between views on abortion has gradually been disappearing. Current polling suggests that the group that has the strongest support of abortion being illegal under any circumstances are those ages 18-29. While it’s clear currently people are in the mushy middle on the issue – it appears that the tide has been shifting consistently towards support for life since the mid-nineties. Here’s a link to the Gallup article if you’d like to review the statistics in more detail.

Here’s an excerpt from their commentary:

Gallup analysis of U.S. public opinion trends on abortion shows that generational differences in support for broadly legal abortion have diminished over the past decade. In the mid-1970s, when Gallup started polling on the issue, adults aged 18 to 29 and 30 to 49 were the most supportive of legal abortion under any circumstances, and those 65 and older the least, with 50- to 64-year-olds falling in between. That pattern continued through the late 1990s. Since 2000, however, all age groups with the exception of seniors have shown similar levels of support for broadly legal abortion.

The convergence of younger adults’ (aged 18 to 49) and middle-aged adults’ (aged 50 to 64) views occurred because support for legal abortion in all situations dipped among the youngest two age categories and increased slightly among middle-aged adults between the late 1990s and the early 2000s…There is a somewhat different pattern in the trends by age for those choosing the “illegal in all circumstances” position.

Two important changes are apparent. One is a significant drop in the percentage of seniors saying all abortions should be illegal. This fell from 32% in the earliest years of the trend to 16% in the first half of the 1990s, but has since rebounded somewhat to 21%. This long-term 11-point decline among seniors compares with a 9-point increase — from 14% to 23% — in support for the “illegal in all circumstances” position among 18- to 29-year-olds since the early 1990s.

As a result, 18- to 29-year-olds are now roughly tied with seniors as the most likely of all age groups to hold this position on abortion — although all four groups are fairly close in their views. This is a sharp change from the late 1970s, when seniors were substantially more likely than younger age groups to want abortion to be illegal.