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From the Newswires

Abortion Views Relatively Unchanged 40 Years After Roe v. Wade, Statistics Show

But are Americans' feelings about abortion really so stagnant?

And weeks into Obama's first term, when he established the White House's Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, it named "reduce the need for abortion" as one of its goals.

(Anti-abortion groups, meanwhile, say Obama has shown himself to be nothing but partisan on the issue, and point to his administration's 2011 contraceptive mandate, which they claim also requires employers to fund health plans for medication that could result in an abortion.)

Shifting views on abortion since Roe are perhaps most visible within certain religious groups, particularly Catholics and conservative Protestants.

In 2009, Gallup released a poll showing that Catholics, who had in the past more readily accepted Catholic teaching against abortion, now shared views that reflected those of Americans in general: there was just a 1-point difference on whether abortion is "morally acceptable" between Catholics (40 percent) and non-Catholics (41 percent).

The latest Pew study, which asked a different question on abortion, showed that 73 percent of white evangelical Protestants consider abortion to be morally wrong — outpacing Catholics (58 percent) as the religious group most opposed to abortion.

"Where traditionally it was Catholics who were more opposed to abortion, that's changed in a dramatic fashion," said Cox, of the Public Religion Research Institute. "Now it's white evangelical Protestants who are most opposed."


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Displaying 1–3 of 4 comments

audrey ruth

January 27, 2013  9:40am

"Yes, Hitler killed 6 millions, while America has killed over 50 million of the complete innocent humans!" AMEN, H.D. Schmidt, and that number is now much closer to 60 million -- a million times more little babies have been murdered in this modern holocaust, which, like the first, has the complete legal sanction of the government. The development of ultrasound has shown us what the Lord told us centuries ago in Psalm 139, but many people are blind, apparently willingly so. God help America! Grassroots national repentance is our only hope.

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H. D. Schmidt

January 25, 2013  3:31pm

What does that mean? It only means that America while still claiming to be under God and its money says in God we trust, is more and more ungodly! And yes, making Adolph Hitler look better every day in comparison; not to say that he was not an evil man, which he was! Our pulpits have become too timid to point out sins! What America is doing to its unborn, the way I see it, it has become the greatest insult ever to the Gospel! Yes, Hitler killed 6 millions, while America has killed over 50 million of the complete innocent humans!

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carlene byron

January 25, 2013  12:22pm

The apparent shift in evangelical views to pro-choice might have to do w/how often conservative Christian women abort: in 2008, 75% of abortions were to women who self-identified as Catholic or Protestant Christians. Perhaps the frenzy of pro-life poll guides and rallies is a reflection of our own sense of guilt before God, which might be better confessed than politicked.

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