Living in Northwest Oregon – where enduring the extensive waterfall in our months-long Spring is considered a survival sport – you have lots of what we call “indoor time.”
During such extensive intervals of avoiding the vertical wet, many of us turn to a sort of terminal version of minutiae which can entail activities up to and including reading wallpaper.
In such a downpour the other day, I was reading a story about a new poll by the folks at Gallup. I’ve never been contacted by that venerable company but have been a frequent follower of their studious work.
What caught my eye about the latest Gallup sampling was the bold headline. It read “Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?”
At first, I was just curious. But, given some deeper thought, I wondered, “What could possibly be new about that?”
I was in for a bit of a surprise.
Gallup’s recent field testing on the thorny abortion issue found something we’ve not seen for a long, long time.
A majority of Americans – 55% – now identify as “pro-choice.” That’s the highest in 27 years. During those years, when asked their thoughts, only some 40-50% identified as such. When converting percentages to population, that’s a significant shift in thought of millions of people.
And, there’s this. The polling began the same day the leak of the SCOTUS draft decision showing the court was likely on a path to gut Roe vs Wade was published by POLITICO.
Gallup’s Director for U.S. Social Research. Lydia Saad, attributed the rise in support for abortion rights to that SCOTUS news.
“The prospect of the Supreme Court overturning the case (which) established a woman’s right to seek an abortion has clearly jolted a segment of Americans into identifying with the “pro-choice” side of the issue,” she wrote. “More are expressing unequivocal support for abortion being legal.”
Identification as “pro-choice” rather than “pro-life” also went up nine-percentage points to 61% among women, up 12 points to 67% among young adults 18-34 and up nine points to 58% for adults 35-54.
Gallup found no significant change among Republicans, Independents, men or older GOP’ers.
The poll queried 1,007 adults over a three-week period starting the day the SCOTUS draft appeared. That would have been May 2nd.
And there’s this. The Wall Street Journal – no left-leaning publication – did its own polling about the same time and found more than two-thirds of Americans want Roe upheld with most favoring “access to legal abortion for any reason.”
The Journal called the results a “four-decade evolution” in the nation’s view of abortion rights.
Since Gallup’s poll found little-to-no-change in self-identifying “Republicans, Independents and men,” it would seem the upswing in “pro-choice” responses probably came from self-identifying Democrats – both men and women – and folks voicing no active political party connection.
Wherever the “pro-choice” support came from, you can bet politicians of every stripe will look at the numbers and “adjust accordingly.”
There is a visceral attachment to Roe by a sizeable cross-section of people in this country. Maybe Gallup will do additional polls to see just how large that group may be.
Regardless, just this outing found a notable up-tick of “pro-choice” voices meaning a lot of Americans are closely watching for the SCOTUS ruling which is due before the Court adjourns later this month.
What affect that ruling will have on the November General Election is anybody’s guess.
A little? A lot? No effect?
We shall see.
