Respected poll shows more Americans rejecting "right" to abortion in 2009

Signs of hope - a continued trend towards the pro-life position in our country - public support for abortion has dropped 11% since the same time last year:

Polls conducted in 2009 have found fewer Americans expressing support for abortion than in previous years. In Pew Research Center polls in 2007 and 2008, supporters of legal abortion clearly outnumbered opponents; now Americans are evenly divided on the question, and there have been modest increases in the numbers who favor reducing abortions or making them harder to obtain. Less support for abortion is evident among most demographic and political groups.

The latest Pew Research Center survey also reveals that the abortion debate has receded in importance, especially among liberals. At the same time, opposition to abortion has grown more firm among conservatives, who have become less supportive of finding a middle ground on the issue and more certain of the correctness of their own views on abortion. (Pew Forum)

The Obama tie-in:

The timing of this shift in attitudes on abortion suggests it could be connected to Obama's election. The decline in support for legal abortion first appeared in polls in the spring of 2009. Overall, roughly three-in-ten (29%) think Obama will handle the abortion issue about right as president. One-in-five Americans (19%) worry that Obama will go too far in supporting abortion rights, while very few (4%) express the opposite concern that Obama will not go far enough to support abortion rights.

Opposition to abortion remains connected to how serious people take their faith:

"...most people who regularly attend religious services continue to come down in opposition to abortion, while the large majority of those who rarely or never attend religious services still support legal abortion."

By the way, "regularly attend" typically translates in these polls to "attends weekly." In other words, people who merely attend Mass or Christian services *once* a week are far more likely to be pro-life.

Some amazing points are also made:

The poll finds that four-in-ten Americans are unaware of Obama's position on the abortion issue. Conservative Republicans, however, are more likely than any other group to know Obama's position, with 75% correctly identifying him as "pro-choice" rather than "pro-life."

It's stunning to me that 40% of Americans don't even know about Obama's position on abortion, and that 25% of Republicans evidently don't know he is pro-abortion.

Clearly, those of us in the pro-life movement have a great opportunity here for continuing to educate our fellow Americans about the issue of abortion, and Obama's radical position on it.