Poll: Abortion Support Falling among Young Adults

By Audrey Barrick, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, March 13, 2010

Over the last 20 years, support for legal abortion has continued to drop among young adults, a new Gallup poll shows.

In 2009, only 24 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 said abortion should be legal under any circumstances, a drop from 28 percent in the year 2000 and 36 percent in 1990.

Even compared to 30- to 64-year-olds, the young cohort is now less likely to support abortion, the Gallup survey on Friday revealed.

Young adults (23 percent) are also most likely to say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances compared to their older counterparts, including those aged 65 and older (21 percent) – who have been the most conservative in abortion views.

Gallup notes, "This is a sharp change from the late 1970s, when seniors were substantially more likely than younger age groups to want abortion to be illegal."

In 1975, only 18 percent of young adults said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances while 32 percent of seniors said the same.

Currently, 51 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds say abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.

Overall, Gallup found that Americans of all age groups were more supportive of legal abortion under any circumstances in the early 1990s but have subsequently shed some of that support since the late 1990s. Further decline has been seen since then.

The widespread pro-life views among today's youth and young adults have been documented by a number of organizations. Population Research Institute in 2008 found that the hundreds of thousands of people who walk in the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., are getting younger every year. PRI refuted Planned Parenthood's claim that America's youth are primarily pro-choice.

A newly released documentary, titled "Thine Eyes: A Witness to the March or Life," also shows that contrary to media portrayals of marchers being angry and old, the majority of March for Life participants are under 25 years of age and not violent.

The Gallup report is based on annual averages of Gallup's abortion surveys, from 1975 through 2009. All individual surveys are based on interviews with a random sample of approximately 1,000 national adults, aged 18 and older.