As two vacancies on the Supreme Court opened up last year, a series of polls found that people in the U.S. approve of the Roe v. Wade decision by a significant margin – but these polls distort Americans’ real feelings regarding abortion.
That’s the view of Mark Stricherz, a contributing editor to Crisis magazine, who takes an in-depth look behind the polls in an article titled "A Terrible Misunderstanding.”
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision declared that no restrictions can be placed on abortion in the first trimester; in the second trimester, the state can regulate abortion "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health,” but not ban it; and in the third trimester the state can ban abortion except when there is a threat to the mother’s life or health.
But the 1973 companion case to Roe, Doe v. Bolton, decreed that "maternal health” must take into account "all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age – relevant to the well-being of the patient.”
The ruling allowed a pregnant woman to have an abortion "for practically any reason remotely tied to health,” Stricherz observes.
Then a 2000 Court decision struck down laws banning partial-birth abortion.
"Thus, the Court now permits abortion at nearly any time for virtually any reason,” writes Stricherz. But that’s often not how pollsters frame the question when asking about Roe v. Wade, according to the writer.
A June 2005 Gallup Poll, for instance, describing Roe as "the decision that legalized abortion” found strong support for the decision – 65 percent.
But the Los Angeles Times framed its poll question more in line with what the Court’s rulings really mean: "Generally speaking, are you in favor of the Supreme Court decision which permits a woman to get an abortion from a doctor at any time, or are you opposed to that?”
The result: Only 43 percent of respondents were in favor. "It was the lowest level of support recorded because the rest of the polls misinterpret Roe and Doe. They view Roe v. Wade as a decision that legalized abortion but restricted the procedure, not one that made virtually all abortions legal,” writes Stricherz.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of respondents in Gallup polls disapprove of abortion when a woman and her partner simply do not want another child or when a pregnancy would interfere with a woman’s career.
Also, polls have routinely found that about two-thirds of respondents oppose legal abortion after the first trimester – and a 2003 CNN/USA Today poll found that 84 percent oppose it in the last three months of pregnancy.
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