Gallup Polls Finding Younger Americans More Strongly Pro-Life on Abortion
The Gallup polling agency released an analysis today of its polling data going back to 1975 and it found that younger Americans are currently more strongly pro-life than middle-aged Americans. The polling results give the pro-life movement hope that public opinion will continue moving in the pro-life direction.
Looking at a combination of its polls from 2005-2009, just 24 percent of Americans between the ages of 18-29 support keeping abortion legal for any reason throughout pregnancy.
That’s less than the 26 percent of 50-64 year-olds who support all legal abortions and less than the 28 percent of 30-49 year-olds who support it. As has been the case since Roe, the oldest Americans above 65 are the most pro-life with only about 16 percent saying they support all abortions.
Looking at it another way in the 2005-2009 polls, 23 percent of 18-29 year-olds say all abortions should be illegal compared with 17 percent of those 30-49 and those 50-64. The number is even higher than those 65+, 21 percent of whom want all abortions illegal.
“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,” Gallup noted.
Which leads to the inevitable question: if the twenty-somethings are really more pro-life than they used to be, what combination of ignorance and obfuscation led to disproportionate numbers of them voting for Obama?
One possible answer: when they are asked a direct question, they give an answer that feels good to them, but they don’t really care enough about it to affect major decisions like whom to vote for.
Polls often don’t measure how strongly people hold the views they hold, or how much it matters to them.
