Current Opinions About Abortion

On December 5, 2021, I published a blog article titled The 1987 Movie and Opinions About Abortion. I focused on women's opinions, because they are the main fans of the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, which essentially advocated for the legalization of abortion.

The Gallup company has collected opinions about abortion since 1973, when the US Supreme Court issued its Roe v Wade ruling, which struck down all the states' abortion laws.

Here are women's opinions before and after 1987 (click on the graphs to enlarge it):

Women's opinions about abortion

From 1973 to the present, about 20% of women have opposed abortion in all cases (the low, dotted line). The other 80% think that abortion should be legal at least some cases (the middle, green line) or in all cases (the upper, blue line).  

In the years following 1987, the percentage of women who thought that abortion should be legal in all cases fell from 58% to about 43%, while the percent who thought it should be legal only in some cases rose steeply from about 23% to 33%. 

In other words, support for abortion fell after the 1987 movie. Fewer women thought abortion should be legal in all cases. However, perhaps that happened because the movie caused women to think and discuss more about the issue and to become more nuanced in their opinions.

After about 1995, the 80% reverted largely to its pre-1987 ratio. By 1997, about 63% of women thought that abortion should be legal in all cases. That year, 1997, was the peak of support for abortion legality. 

Since 1997, the always-legal opinion has gradually declined. In 2021, only about 45% of women thought that abortion always should be legal (about 50% of men thought so).

In recent years, the controversy has been more about abortions in late pregnancy. Rather than arguing about first-trimester abortions, people have been arguing about third-trimester abortions. As the fetus looks more and more like a baby, women feel more and more that abortions should be legally restricted.

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In the movie, Penny Johnson was about two-months pregnant when she got her abortion. Her fetus looked about like this:

Two-month fetus

Below is an eight-month fetus:

Eight-month fetus

In 1987, when Dirty Dancing opened in the movie theaters, the public controversy was largely about two-month fetuses. Now in 2022, the controversy is largely about eight-month fetuses. 

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A recent opinion poll has been summarized as follows (click on the image to enlarge it):

Rich Baris Poll, June 2022

The chart's top part shows that 45.8% of the population considers itself to be pro-choice, and 43.6% considers itself to be pro-life. Among Republicans, 25.2% is pro-choice, and 68.1% is pro-life. You can see the percentages for the Democrats and Independents.

The chart's fourth blue-color section shows the percentages related to the final three months (seventh, eight and ninth) of pregnancy. Only 16.7% of the population supports the legalization of abortion in the final three months, and 70.7% oppose such legalization. Democrats, too, oppose such legalization overwhelmingly (see the red box).

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The chart's final section indicates that only 7.5% of the population thinks that abortion is the most important political issue.

I myself think that abortion is an interesting political issue, but I never would base my vote for a political candidate on his or her opinion about the legalization of abortion. Many other political issues are much more important to me. 

What concerns me most about the abortion issue is that I think abortion laws should be made by the state legislatures, not by the nine old justices on the US Supreme Court. What happened in 1987 was that a majority of the Supreme Court justices felt strongly that abortion should be legal in the first three months, and so they replaced all the states' abortion laws with their own personal opinions about what the laws should be. Those justices' legal justification -- about a supposed privacy principle in the US Constitution's "emanations and penumbras" -- was bogus, concocted and arrogant. 

Plenty of people share my opinion about that 1987 Supreme Court ruling. We are happy that that ruling now is revoked. From now on, abortion laws again will be made by the states' legislatures, not by the nine old members of the US Supreme Court. Also, the Federal Government -- in particular, the US Congress -- should stay out of it. 

I expect that every state will legalize abortion through the first three months of pregnancy. I myself would support the general legalization through the first four-and-a-half months. At some point, though, abortion becomes outrageous to most of society. As a fetus approaches birth, an abortion decision becomes more and more society's decision. An abortion looks more and more like the murder of a baby.