The percentage of adults worldwide who believe a woman should be able to have an abortion whenever she wants one has dropped to just 44 percent, the Washington Post reported Monday.
In an op-ed titled “Global Public Opinion About Abortion Is Shifting,” Ben Schott cites a recent Ipsos global survey that shows a 5-percentage-point drop in global approval of abortion between 2016 and 2020.
The survey, involving 17,500 adults across 25 countries, showed that 70 percent think abortion should be legal in some circumstances, down from 75 percent just four years ago.
Only 44 percent of those surveyed support abortion-on-demand, however, or legal abortion “whenever a woman decides she wants one.”
Polls in the United States have consistently shown that Americans favor significant restrictions on abortion and oppose taxpayer funding of abortions both domestically and abroad.
A wide-ranging poll released in January 2019 found that 75 percent of Americans want substantial restrictions on abortion, including 60 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of those who identify as “pro-choice.”
The KofC/Marist survey found that three quarters of Americans say abortion should be limited to — at most — the first three months of pregnancy. Abortion is currently legal for all nine months of pregnancy in many states of the U.S.
“As in past years, this poll shows that the pro-choice label on the abortion issue is simply insufficient,” said Knights of Columbus CEO Carl Anderson. “The majority of Americans – in both parties – support legal restrictions on abortion. Two-thirds of Americans want Roe revisited to allow for state regulation of abortion or to ban it altogether. The majority of the American people deserve to have their opinions heard.”
The poll also revealed that 65 percent of Americans say that if the Supreme Court revisits Roe v. Wade, the Court should either return the issue of abortion legislation to the states (49 percent) or outlaw the procedure altogether (16 percent).
Regarding taxpayer funding of the procedure, 54 percent oppose any taxpayer funding of abortion, while 39 percent support it. An even higher share (75 percent) oppose all taxpayer funding of abortion abroad.
The Hyde Amendment prohibits the federal government from financing abortions in the United States while the Helms Amendment limits the use of taxpayer funding for foreign abortions.
Joe Biden has promised to fight to have both of these amendments repealed if he is elected president in November.
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