Poll: Majority of Americans Pro-Life

Washington -- Fifty-nine percent of voters in the last election (1998) favor a ban on partial-birth abortion, according to a post-election survey sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. Among those who voted Republican, 71% support a ban, and among Democrats, it a majority of 51% want it.

Thirty-nine percent of voters (50% of those voting Republican and 30% of those voting Democrat) said banning partial-birth abortions should be a "top priority" for the next Congress.

Overall, 57% of Republican voters that a pro-life position believing that abortion should either be prohibited completely, allowed to save the life of the mother, or allowed only in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Meanwhile, 37% of Democrats hold those same pro-life views. Fifty percent of Democrats say abortion should "be generally available to those who want it," while only 25% of Republicans hold that belief. Clearly more respondents support a pro-life position than abortion on demand.

The poll, conducted in November by Princeton Survey Research Associates, surveyed 751 voters in the last election. It has a margin of error for the entire sample of +/- 4% and +/- 6.5% for the Democrat and Republican subsamples (Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health, "Post Election Survey: Priorities for the 106th Congress," 1/14).


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