Most Americans support abortion rights with limitations, according to a new American Barometer survey.
The poll, conducted by Hill.TV and the HarrisX polling company, found that 41 percent of respondents believe that the procedure should be legal in limited circumstances, such as rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.
Another 27 percent said they thought that abortion should be legal under most circumstances until the start of the third trimester in pregnancy.
Eighteen percent said the procedure should be legal under all circumstances, while 14 percent of respondents said abortion should be illegal under all circumstances,
Karlyn Bowman, senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha that Americans’ views on abortion have been steady for years because they have mixed feelings on the issue.
“I think that Americans in their own hearts believe that it should be a personal choice, and believe it’s life, and when you think about that, that’s a deeply contradictory idea,” Bowman said on “What’s America Thinking.”
“I think Americans have always had some ambivalence about the issue, and that’s why you see the numbers being remarkably steady over decades,” she continued.
The poll comes as President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, faces his third day of confirmation hearings in the Senate.
Liberals have been quick to question Kavanaugh’s views on reproductive rights and have expressed fears that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion.
Kavanaugh largely sidestepped questions on abortion Wednesday, saying that the case was “important precedent” and “reaffirmed many times.”
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called Kavanaugh’s answer a “judicial dodge.”
On Thursday, The New York Times published a leaked email from 2003, when Kavanaugh was at the White House counsel’s office, in which he questioned whether Roe v. Wade was “settled law.”
The American Barometer was conducted from Aug. 31 to Sept. 1 among 1,000 registered voters. The sampling margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
— Julia Manchester
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