Majority Identify as 'Pro-Life'

But say abortion should remain legal

Majority Identify as 'Pro-Life'
Courtesy of Planned Parenthood

A Gallup Poll released today reveals that 50% of Americans identify themselves as "pro-life."

The poll reveals a record low number of people across the political spectrum identify themselves as "pro-choice" – 41% of all respondents. Only 22% of Republican and 41% of independent voters now call themselves pro-choice, the lowest percentage of self-identification by either group in more than a decade. (58% of Democratic voters still identify as pro-choice, slightly more than the 11-year low of 55% in 2001.) Still, while 51% of Americans believe that abortion is "morally wrong," a majority of Americans, 52%, believe that abortion should remain legal under certain circumstances.

Meanwhile, results of another Gallup Poll released yesterday reveal that 82% of Catholics believe that the use of birth control is "morally acceptable" – despite the ongoing tensions between Catholic church leaders and the Obama Administration over a new rule that would require birth control coverage in employee health care plans. (Read more about church doctrine and Catholic women here.)

According to the poll results 82% of all Americans find birth control morally acceptable, as do 90% of non-Catholics.

You can find results of the abortion poll here.

Results of the birth control poll are here.

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Read more of the Chronicle's decades of reproductive rights reporting here.

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KEYWORDS FOR THIS POST

family planning, reproductive rights, abortion, women's health, Gallup Poll, Planned Parenthood, Affordable Care Act

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