New Poll Shows Americans are Pro-Life

January 21, 2003—Washington, DC: Nearly 70 percent of Americans say they favor "restoring legal protection for unborn children," according to a new poll that pro-life groups say shows public opinion is swinging their way on the abortion issue.

"This is the new, big change in this country," Sandy Rios, president of Concerned Women for America, said yesterday as she and other leaders of pro-life groups released the findings of a Wirthlin Worldwide poll taken last month.

Some 1,000 adults were asked whether, in light of medical advances that reveal the unborn child's body and facial features in detail, "are you in favor of restoring legal protection for unborn children?" Sixty-eight percent of the randomly surveyed adults said they were in favor of legal protection, with 44 percent in strong agreement of such action. Only 25 percent opposed suh pro-life action.

Almost the same number -- 66 percent -- said they favored nominees to the Supreme Court "who would uphold laws that restore legal protection to unborn children." Only 28 percent said no.

These polls reflect a growing pro-life attitude, said Janet Folger, president of Faith2Action, a new outreach organization for pro-life and traditional family issues. "We have the American people standing with us."

"The bottom line is, 30 years of chanting 'choice' cannot overshadow what it is that's being chosen," Folger said. "A child, even the child of an abortion supporter, can recognize that that being in the womb is a human being, that being is a baby."

"We are stronger. We are more united. We are standing with truth, backed by technology," Folger continued speaking about the condituion of the pro-life movement, "and the vast majority of the American people."

The grass-roots leaders praised President Bush and his administration for their pro-life positions, including proclaiming Sunday as National Sanctity of Human Life Day. "He's done more, practically speaking, than any other president," said Rios.

Thomas Glessner, president and founder of the National Institute of Family Health and Life Advocacy (NIFLA), said that new ultrasound technology can both persuade women to opt against abortion and persuade the American public that the developing child before birth is a unique human being worth of legal protection.

"It may be years before we achieve our goal of legal protection," Glessner said. "But during the next few years, we are going to see a decreasing number of abortions nationwide because of the efforts of pregnancy health centers providing medical services, including ultrasound, to empower women who are considering abortion to choose life."

NIFLA research indicates that up to 90 percent of women who see their unborn child using new "3-D" ultrasound technology choose to carry the baby to term.

Pro-abortion activists have called providing access to such ultrasound equipment "intimidation," and have taken legal measures to block such access. Glessner's group provides legal representation and helps pregnancy health centers become licensed health care facilities to avoid legal problems.

In response to the new polling data, NARAL Pro-Choice America said the pro-life message was out of step with the beliefs of many Americans. "A majority of Americans believe that women should have the right to choose and that decision should be between a woman and her doctor," the group said in a statement.

The polling data comes at a time when a new study by the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute, affiliated with Planned Parenthood, shows the number of abortion facilities across the U.S. has decreased significantly.

The number of abortion facilities decreased by 11 percent in 2000 to 1,819. Of those, 46 percent were abortion-only facilities, 33 percent were hospitals and 21 percent were private physicians' offices. Only 13 percent of U.S. counties had an abortion facility, as did only 86 of the nation's 276 metropolitan areas.

"Just as we now look back at our nation's history and ask how decent men and women could have tolerated and defended such horrors as slavery, segregation and discrimination," Rios said Wednesday, "so the next generation will ask how decent men and women could tolerate and even welcome such abominations as abortion, euthanasia and cloning."