New Barna Study Surveys Views on Abortion

In the latest study conducted by the Barna Group, five insights are uncovered regarding public views on abortion.

Abortion continues to split the nation.

The Barna study of 1,001 adults explored Americans’ views on abortion by asking if they believe “abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases.” Given this set of four options, the nation’s population leans toward retaining legal status for abortion: 49% prefer keeping it legal in all or most cases versus 42% who would like to make it illegal in all or most instances.

However, most Americans take a moderate, rather than hard-line, stance.

Only about one-third of Americans take a strong position on one side or the other. For instance, 15% want abortion to be legal in every situation and 19% prefer the practice to be illegal in all cases. Most others hold moderate views – 57% expressed a mildly supportive or unsupportive opinion. Meanwhile, one out of 11 adults simply responded “not sure” or declined to answer (9%). Compared to tracking data conducted in the 1990s and early 2000s, the new research suggests that Americans are more likely these days to take a “middle ground” or “not sure” position toward abortion.

Faith remains a significant dividing line of opinions.

Among evangelical Christians, 78% believe that the practice should be illegal in all or most cases, a proportion which is virtually mirrored by the 72% of atheists and agnostics who support keeping the practice legal. Also, each of these segments was the most likely population group to express unyielding resistance to (evangelicals) or support for (atheists and agnostics) abortion.
Other faith audiences were less polarized, but still had distinct perspectives on the matter, either for or against. Non-evangelical born again Christians favor making abortion illegal (55% illegal versus 39% legal), as did active churchgoers (60% versus 33%) and non-mainline Protestants (58% versus 34%). Those faith segments that prefer keeping abortion legal were self-identified Christians who are not born again (54% legal versus 31% illegal), Catholics (53% versus 36%), mainline Protestants (53% versus 40%), and faiths other than Christianity (54% versus 42%).

Interestingly, when faith and political allegiance are combined, born again Republicans (72%) were among the most ardent critics of abortion. Born again independent voters also favored making abortion illegal (58%), while born again Democrats were split between those who were for (47%) and against (47%) the practice.

Young born again Christians retain similar abortion views to older Christians.

While there has been much discussion about the changing perspectives of young Christians, the research revealed that born again Christians under the age of 45 were not substantially different from older generations of Christians. Overall, 61% of 18- to 44-year-old born again Christians said they wanted to see abortion be illegal in all or most cases, which compares to 55% among born again believers ages 45 and older. (The six-point gap is within the range of sampling error for the two subgroups.) Interestingly, when compared to older born again Christians, the younger set are much more likely to express strong views about the subject (either keeping it legal or illegal in all cases) and less likely to say they are not sure.

Keeping abortion legal elicits more demographic pockets of support than resistance.

A significant number of demographic segments prefer retaining legalized status for abortions, including: whites, Hispanics, and Asians; upscale adults and college graduates; the nation’s two largest generations, Busters (ages 26 to 44) and Boomers (ages 45 to 63); women; unmarried adults and those currently without children; political moderates and liberals; registered Democrats and independent voters; and a plurality of residents living in the Midwest, West, and Northeast.

Those groups most resistant to abortion are residents of the South, political conservatives, Mosaics (ages 18 to 25), and Republicans. A handful of population segments emerged as equally likely to take both sides of the issue: blacks, parents, married adults, non-college grads, Elders (ages 64-plus), and downscale adults.

Read more @ the Barna Group