A common narrative Americans typically get from the media has been that women are vehemently more pro-abortion than men. However, Democrat pollster Celinda Lake has recently come forward to suggest this line of thinking may not be true.
Lake, president of Lake Research, spoke with Joe Concha on Hill TV’s “What America’s Thinking” earlier this week, where she stated, “Women are much less likely to be pro-choice.” She went on to explain that women are also more likely to be religious than men, which results in less support for abortion.
A 2016 study done by The Marist Poll surveyed almost 3,000 U.S. residents above the age of 18. It found that of the population sample who considered themselves to be religious, the majority considered themselves to be pro-life — 58 percent identified as pro-life with only 37 percent identifying as pro-choice. Furthermore, 30 percent of the group that identified as religious and pro-choice stated that they swing pro-life at times.
Gallup also points to a narrow gender gap in support for abortion. A May 2018 poll showed that 26 percent of men favored completely legal abortion, while 31 percent of women were in support. The percentage of people who wanted abortion to be completely illegal was the same in both genders, sitting at 19 percent.
Lake did not just talk about gender, but also millennials and their thoughts on Roe v. Wade. “Millennials think that Roe v. Wade happened right after the American Revolution,” she stated. “They have no idea that there was ever a time when abortions were illegal.”
The Public Religion Research Institute took a poll in April that compared generational thoughts on abortion. The survey discovered that 65 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 think abortion should be legal in most cases, as compared to the 51 percent of Americans 65 or older who believe the same.
However, maybe the greatest factor in the abortion argument is not gender or age, but simply how the facts are presented and arranged. As Michael New, a pro-life researcher and political science professor, has written:
The Pew Research Center survey described Roe v. Wade as having ‘established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy’ [resulting in support of over 60 percent]. However, when the Los Angeles Times described Roe v. Wade as the decision ‘which permits a woman to get an abortion from a doctor at any time’ – support fell to 43 percent.
Photo credit: Victoria Pickering via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
