More adults in the United States believe pregnancy termination should be allowed in their country, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 57 per cent of respondents think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up six points since November.
The 1973 Supreme Court ruling gave American women the right to an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, and regulated the procedure during the second trimester "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health." In the third trimester, a state can choose to proscribe abortion, except when necessary "for the preservation of the life or health of the mother."
Earlier this month, former deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove criticized Illinois senator Barack Obama—the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party in this year’s U.S. election—for his views on abortion, saying, "This is a man who stands up and says he is going to bring Republicans and Democrats together to achieve great things for the country. How can you claim to do that if you are at the same time supporting the divisive practice of using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion? You can’t. You cannot square that circle."
Polling Data
Do you think abortion should be...
Jun. 2008
Nov. 2007
Oct. 2007
Legal in all cases
19%
18%
21%
Legal in most cases
38%
33%
32%
Illegal in most cases
24%
29%
24%
Illegal in all cases
13%
15%
15%
Not sure
6%
5%
8%
Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 2,004 American adults, conducted from Jun. 18 to Jun. 29, 2008. Margin of error is 3 per cent.
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