Politics

Poll: Support For Legal Abortion Hits Two-Decade High

(Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

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Mary Margaret Olohan Social Issues Reporter
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Support for legal abortion has reached a two-decade high, according to a poll released Wednesday.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll reveals that 60 percent of those polled believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. The majority show of support for abortion ties a record-high level of abortion support in 1995.

WaPo and ABC News conducted the poll by telephone between June 28 and July 1. The poll surveyed a random sample of 1,008 adults nation wide with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. (RELATED: ACLU Told CA Teachers To Help Students Obtain Abortions Without Parental Notification, Video Reveals)

65 percent of those surveyed were reached on cellphones and 35 percent were reached on landlines, according to the poll.

The survey also found that 36 percent of those polled say that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases — a record low number.

The poll posed the question, “Should your state make it (easier) for women to have access to abortion, make it (harder) for women to have access to abortion, or leave the law on women’s access to abortion as it is now?” Forty-one percent of those polled chose the option “leave as it is now,” while 32 percent said that states should make it easier for women to obtain abortions. Twenty-four percent said states should make it harder.

Those polled were also asked how important abortion would be to them when they cast their vote in the 2020 presidential elections. Forty-seven percent said this issue was “very important” to them, 28 percent said it was “somewhat important,” and 10 percent said it was “less important.”

A May Gallup poll found the majority of Americans want restrictions on abortion. The poll also noted that American’s perception of themselves as pro-life or pro-choice can depend on survey context.

Fifty-three percent of U.S. adults want abortion to be legal “only under certain circumstances,” the Gallup poll found. The poll also said that 25 percent of Americans want abortion with no restrictions and 21 percent of Americans think abortion should be completely illegal.

Though the poll found that the majority of Americans want restrictions on abortion, the poll also revealed that 60 percent of Americans oppose fetal heartbeat laws.

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