PRO-LIFE GRASSROOTS WORK MOVES ABORTION POLLS.(Brief Article)

It is worth highlighting that in July 1996, coincident with the emergence of a new national debate over partial-birth abortion, Gallup recorded a significant drop in the number of Americans saying abortion should be legal in all cases. Since then, the percentage favoring unrestricted abortions has averaged just 25%, down from about 33% in the previous five yearsE.

Two aspects of this adjustment make it unprecedented. First, it happened quickly, occurring between September 1995 and July 1996. Second, it represents the first time since Gallup began asking its principal abortion question in 1975 that opinion on the issue shifted in a significant and sustained way to the conservative side, rather than to the liberal side.

Given the timing of the shift, it appears that the debate over partial-birth abortion is the cause for this adjustment in public attitudes. It appears that partial-birth abortion became an important factor for Americans to consider when crystallizing their own positions on abortion. Specifically, partial-birth abortion became a widely familiar "circumstance" in 1996 that some people who previously favored "abortion in all circumstances" may have had in mind when they moved into the "only certain circumstances" category. Indeed, a large number of Americans who generally think abortion should be legal in all cases, nevertheless say they favor a ban on partial-birth abortion (57%, according to a March 2000 Gallup poll). Thus, the potential for this issue to move some of these people into the "only certain circumstances" category is clear.

--Gallup Poll Special Reports: "Public Opinion About Abortion--An In-Depth Review" by Lydia Saad (1/22/2002 at gallup.com/poll/special reports/poll Summaries)

The goal of the pro-life movement is clear: we want nothing less than the full legal protection of the right to life, from conception to natural death. For this to happen we must convince a solid majority of the public to subscribe to that goal. The question from the very beginning of the pro-life movement has been how to do this.

Right after Roe v. Wade was announced in 1973, a direct legislative counterattack by Congress and President Nixon--a federal law guaranteeing the right to life and declaring that the Court had unconstitutionally "legislated from the bench"--might have caused the Supreme Court to retreat. But that opportunity was wasted; neither Congress nor President Nixon had the fortitude to see through a constitutional impasse. And at the time, the right-to-life movement did not have the numbers and organizational strength it has today.

Now we are left with two approaches to secure the right to life: either the Constitution is amended to guarantee the right to life or the Supreme Court reverses its error and abandons Roe v. Wade and all subsequent rulings affirming or extending the right to abortion on demand. Whichever approach will ultimately succeed, in either case we face the enormous task of moving a substantial majority of the public toward our position. In the one case, we need to convince Congress and a constitutional majority of state legislatures to amend the Constitution. In the other case, we must first generate ...