About That Gallup Abortion Poll
Mark Blumenthal | May 18, 2009
While I was busy at the AAPOR conference, Gallup released a new survey in which more Americans describe themselves as "pro-life" (51%) than "pro-choice" (42%) for the first time since they started asking the question in 1995. The Gallup release noted that an April survey conducted by the Pew Research Center that found a similar "conservative turn" on abortion. Not surprisingly, the release generated considerable commentary around the web -- here is a brief round-up.
On Saturday, our own Charles Franklin took at look at the partisan balance of respondents to the Gallup survey and found that, yes, as some of our commenters had suspected, it included more self-identified Republicans and fewer Democrats than other recent surveys of adults. However, even an "idiosyncratic sampling fluctuation" favoring Republicans on the Gallup poll does not entirely explain away the abortion shift since, as the Gallup release points out, the movement toward the "pro-life" label appears to come entirely from Republicans or independents that lean Republican.
So what to make of the new results? Fortunately, I can point to two excellent summaries by John Sides and Gary Langer that urge caution before making too much of the apparent "conservative turn."
The post by GWU political scientist John Sides is by far the most comprehensive and well worth reading in full. It summarizes results from other media polls and the National Election Studies, the General Social Survey and other commentary on the web (with complete links to all). His bottom line:
Simply put, the Pew and Gallup findings obscure far more than they reveal. They purport to show shifts in opinion that are not evident in other data. There is no consistent evidence for a "conservative turn," as Pew puts it.
Moreover, both Pew and Gallup employ vague questions that do not easily map onto actual policy debates. Once more precise data are employed, it becomes clear that opinion strongly depends on the circumstances under which the abortion would occur. While people who are favor a legal abortion under any of the circumstances mentioned outnumber those who unequivocally oppose abortion by a factor of abut 3, most people are in the middle. In the GSS data, 58% favor a legal abortion under some circumstances, but not others.
The more concise post by ABC News polling director Gary Langer makes a similar point about conflicting results:
While Gallup gets a 51-42 percent "pro-life" vs. "pro-choice" division, a CNN poll that asked the same question last month got a 45-49 percent split - slightly more for "pro-choice." Moreover, CNN had it 50-45 percent - more for "pro-life" - back in May 2007. Thus this is a measure on which sentiment moves around a bit, and one on which something like Gallup's current result has been seen before, by CNN two years ago.
This question, in any case, is essentially message testing, not policy testing. The reality is that most people are both "pro-life" and "pro-choice" (both highly charged terms) at once. Public opinion on abortion is complicated, even conflicted, and heavily dependent on circumstances. Most people think it's between a women and her doctor, but most also object to it on moral grounds; many accept it when it's needed, but not as a casual matter. This has been so for many years.
Langer also cautions strongly against leaping to conclusions about the new results from Gallup:
So what's the best approach to understanding current attitudes on abortion? The first is to steer away from firm conclusions until attitudes resolve themselves in clear and consistent measurement. The second, as ever, is to look not just at the results, but at the questions being asked - and to recognize that public opinion on such a difficult issue is far more complex than a single number can resolve.
Again, both posts are worth reading in full. For even more on this subject, see the initial commentary and subsequent roundup from Ed Kilgore and the abortion trend charts created last week (prior to release of the new Gallup poll) by Nate Silver.
By Mark Blumenthal | May 18, 2009 4:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Comments
It would be interesting to ask the same question but using different words. The phrases "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are so politically and emotionally charged as to have taken on lives of their own. Let us survey the subject by asking questions to determine two separate attitudes: (1) what do people think about abortion (good, indifferent, bad) and (2) what do they think about the government being involved in the decision (not at all, okay for some things, all the time). I suspect most Americans are simultaneously pro-life (think abortion is generally not a good choice) and pro-choice (the government needs to stay out of this).
You note that "the movement toward the 'pro-life' label appears to come entirely from Republicans or independents that lean Republican." Could it be, rather, that pro-choice Republicans have been leaving the party, so that the pro-lifers, without increasing in number, constitute a larger share? Such a factor would of course be aggravated by oversampling of the remaining Republicans.
Excellent summary by Mark. Two new developments of interest: a new Fox Poll also shows a fairly narrow plurality on the pro-life side but a new CNN poll shows a huge majority opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. This again suggests that perhaps there is less to this apparent shift in abortion opinion than some on the pro-life side are trying to make of it.
Posted on May 18, 2009 10:04 PM