Trends in attitudes toward abortion, 1972-1975.

Two-thirds of a nationwide random sample of Americans polled in February 1976 said they agree with the statement that "the right of a woman to have an abortion should be left entirely up to the woman and her doctor." For the first time in the more than 25 years that Americans have been surveyed on their views regarding abortion, substantial majorities of women (69 percent), persons over 65 years of age (57 percent), Catholics (60 percent), blacks (67 percent) and people with less than a high school education (59 percent)-segments of the population that had been somewhat more reserved in their views on abortion-also agreed with the statement, documenting a growing consensus on this question among all Americans.(1)

Successive polls taken in the 1960s and early 1970s posed abortion questions in a variety of ways: Should it be legalized? In what circumstances, if any, should it be permissible? Who should make the decision? All of these surveys reported growing support from virtually all sectors of society for the right of women or couples to elect termination of pregnancy in consultation with their physicians.(2) During the same period, U.S. women had increasing first-hand experience with legal abortion. Between 1969 and 1975, some 3.5 million women obtained legal abortions in the United States-one in 14 of all women of reproductive age.(3)

Nonetheless, abortion remains a volatile political issue, in large part because of the activities of a relatively small but committed and articulate group of men and women who steadfastly oppose it on any grounds, maintaining that abortion should not be an option even in a pluralistic society. Leadership in the campaign to make abortion a criminal offense (as it was in most U.S. states until the mid-1960s) is provided by the Catholic hierarchy, especially the bishops, who, in a move unprecedented in American history, committed themselves last November to organize public and political opposition to abortion in every diocese and every election district in the land. The objective of the campaign is, in the words of the Jesuit publication America, "to secure antiabortion laws from the legislative, judicial and administrative departments of government."(4)

Considerable emphasis has been placed by antiabortion groups on obtaining a constitutional amendment that would reverse the Supreme Court decisions, and prohibit abortions in all circumstances (except, perhaps, to save the pregnant woman's life). Thirty-nine percent of Americans surveyed by the Louis Harris organization in early 1976 said that they opposed the Supreme Court decisions;(5) and 45 percent reported to the Gallup Poll that they favored a constitutional amendment that would prohibit abortions except in life-threatening circumstances.(6) These responses seem at variance with the overwhelming approval of legal abortion-at least where health is threatened, or where there is the likelihood of congenital defect, or where the pregnancy is the result of rape-that has been evident in a variety of polls taken since 1970.(0)

In light of the apparent ambivalence of some of these findings and in the face of the antiabortion campaign, because politicians (in office and running for office) are understandably unwilling to commit themselves to what they perceive are controversial or unpopular issues (in this instance, support of the Supreme Court's 1973 abortion decisions), it is important to understand and to make known, so far as possible, the nuances of the public's attitudes concerning abortion. There can be little quarrel with the often-expressed view that the way a question is posed influences the reply,(7) and that simply asking whether the decision to have an abortion should be up to a woman and her doctor, or whether an abortion should be easier or harder to obtain, provides only a rough estimate of the degree of public support for its decriminalization. Therefore, the responses to five virtually identical surveys (1965 and 1972-1975) asking whether or not an abortion is acceptable in six specific situations, provide a u nique opportunity to evaluate trends in abortion attitudes before and following the 1973 Supreme Court decisions. (The responses, however, may well underestimate the absolute support for or opposition to abortion in the enumerated situations, just because the respondents were provided with a range of choices.) The surveys-fielded to similar samples of Americans by the National Fertility Study (NFS) in 1965 and by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in 1972-1975 asked the following question: Please tell me Whether or not you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion

* if the woman's (own) health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy ("own" was inserted in the 1973-1975 surveys but not in the 1972 question);

* if she became pregnant as a result of rape;