Pro-choice outpolls pro-life for first time in 7 years

For the first time in seven years, Americans who are “pro-choice” hold a statistically significant lead over Americans who are “pro-life.”

According to a new Gallup poll, 50 percent of Americans now call themselves pro-choice, including 54 percent of women and 46 percent of men. Only 44 percent of respondents labeled themselves pro-life, the lowest response in more than five years.


The last time pro-choice respondents held this large of a lead was 2008. In 2006, at one point, Gallup found pro-choice leading pro-life by an even larger ten percentage points, but at one point in 2012, Gallup found that pro-life respondents outweighed pro-choice respondents by 9 percentage points.

This lead evaporated entirely within six months and the difference between the sides returned to being within the margin of error. For the past five years or so, the two sides have been locked in more or less a statistical dead heat.

Now, forty-two percent of respondents said that abortions should be legal in either “most circumstances” or “under any circumstances,” while only 19 percent said that abortions should be illegal “in all circumstances.” A plurality, 36 percent, said the procedure should be legal “in only a few circumstances.”

More than half of respondents ages 55 and younger called themselves pro-choice, while only 47 percent of those 55 and older used the label.

The poll was conducted from May 6-10 among 1024 adults over cell phone and landlines. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.