A Pro-Life Majority?

On Friday, May 15, 2009, Gallup reported that 51 percent of respondents in the Gallup Poll described themselves as "pro-life." As the Los Angeles Times noted, this is "the first time since it began asking the question in 1995" that Gallup has found a pro-life majority. While 42 percent of respondents this year described themselves as "pro-choice," the numbers are almost flip-flopped from last year, when "50% of respondents called themselves 'pro-choice' and 44% identified themselves as 'pro-life.'"

Looking more closely at the Gallup Poll reveals other interesting numbers. Sixty percent of respondents say that abortion should be "illegal under all circumstances" or "legal only in a few circumstances," up from 57 percent the year before. While Democratic attitudes on abortion remain essentially unchanged (61 percent pro-choice this year versus 60 percent last year), 70 percent of Republicans identified themselves as pro-life, up from 60 percent last year.

That last figure is particularly interesting, considering the number of Republican strategists and potential candidates for the Republican nomination in 2012 who have suggested that the Republican Party needs to moderate its position on social issues (especially abortion and "gay marriage") or abandon the pro-life plank in the platform altogether. (The McCain campaign already took an important step in that direction in 2008 by removing any reference in the platform to overturning Roe v. Wade.)

But if the tide is finally turning on public attitudes toward abortion, now would be exactly the wrong time for the Republican Party to abandon the pro-life cause. Much of the argument in favor of doing so has been based on the idea of a "gender gap" over abortion and the need for the Republican Party to attract "soccer moms," but the Gallup Poll shows that, for "the first time in nine years of Gallup Values surveys," "significantly more men and women are pro-life than pro-choice." Men identify as pro-life, 54 percent to 39, while women favor the pro-life position 49 to 44, a near reversal of last year's numbers of 50 percent pro-choice and 43 percent pro-life.

What has caused the change? The Gallup Poll's "Bottom Line" makes it clear that the most likely explanation is the speed with which President Barack Obama has been "making changes to the nation's policies on funding abortion overseas, expressing his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, and moving toward rescinding federal job protections for medical workers who refuse to participate in abortion procedures." Gallup speculates that "Obama has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be 'pro-choice' slightly to the left, politically."

In other words, much of the change may have come from people who previously considered themselves "personally opposed, but . . . " With the heightened attention to abortion brought about by President Obama's actions in his first 100 days in office, some may have begun to see that, in practice, "pro-choice" means "pro-abortion."