Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, or Just Unsure

Labels are powerful things, full of partisan spin and ideological consequences and not a little bit of over-the-top public relations.  Thus you can be pro-life or pro-choice.  Basically attitudes about abortion have remained largely stable over the decades, with one side or the other moving up or down depending on the political whims of the moment.  But when you toss in labels, ah, then things get a even murkier.

So here's the survey question asked by Gallup:  "With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?"

Technically I suppose you could be both, kinda liking life, but liking choice too, but that's nitpicky nonsense that gets away from the matter at hand -- how have things changed over time?

Not all that much.

Setting aside that this is a crappy way of asking the abortion question, the results have shifted up and down for each side over the many years.  Looking at the data since 2001, pro-choice has hit a high of 51 percent (in 2006) and pro-life 50 percent (in 2009).  If you draw a trend line, pro-life is edging up and pro-choice remains mostly the same, with a handful of various "undecided" answers decreasing.  The latest Gallup numbers from May 2010 have it at 45 percent pro-choice, 47 percent pro-life, basically a statistical tie given the margin of error involved.  See the Gallup numbers yourself here.

Another way to look at it over time is the graphic below from the American National Election Studies, available only through 2004.  This shows the proportion of people who believe abortion should never be permitted to be -- maybe -- inching up slightly.  Nothing dramatic, but it more or less fits the previous Gallup numbers.  This is one of those issues that, when it comes to what people know, nearly everyone has an opinion.

Abortion

A new Pew study suggests support for abortion has decreased.  The graphic to the right sums up their numbers.  According to the report:

The shift in opinion is broad-based, appearing in most demographic groups in the population. One of the largest shifts (10 points) has occurred among white, non-Hispanic Catholics who attend Mass at least weekly. Substantial change has also occurred among Democratic men (with support for abortion down nine points), but not among Democratic women.

What people thought about abortion has been largely unchanged for a very long time.  Look here and you'll see some movement but largely steady aggregate opinion about abortion.  This table breaks it down for you in more detail.  Unfortunately the ANES data is only up to 2004 -- they haven't added 2008 yet to the cumulative graphs available online.

Obama, McCain, and Abortion

One out of 10 voters think Obama is against abortion, and 17% think McCain is for legalized abortion. Kinda stunning numbers, given the history and party identification and all the rest.

So who is right, who is wrong? Party identification doesn't seem to affect being correct on either candidate's abortion stand, according to a Pew poll. GOPers and Dems and Indies are all about the same. Ditto for men versus women.

But age and education, those tell a different story. And a surprising one.

18-29-year-olds are better able to identify correctly Obama and McCain's abortion positions than are oldsters. This goes against the grain of most political knowledge findings in which age is positively associated with knowledge. The education results bring us back to familiar territory: the more educated, the more accurate. Whew!

Finally, the "unaffiliated" in terms of religion are more accurate than the various other religious categories created by Pew (evangelical Prod, mainline Prod, and white non-Hispanic Catholics). This is perhaps misleading since, especially evangelical Protestants, tend to be of lower education levels. Control statistically for education and this probably disappears.

The nut graph? A lot of people misread the candidate stands on at least one significant issue, in general the less educated and older folks out there. How this is turned into votes, no one can say, because this is probably the same group of tuned-out people you won't see in line on election day.