Exit Poll Shows More Women Are Pro-Life

0 Comments | Insight on the News, April 16, 2001 | by James P. Lucier, | John Berlau

The recently released results of an Election Day poll indicate there is a growing pro-life consensus among voters, according to Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, president and chief executive officer of the Polling Co.

While the conventional wisdom among the political elite is that the majority of women demand wide availability of abortion, the data from 803 voters leaving the polls last November indicated that a plurality of the electorate (48 percent) and a little more than half of female voters (51 percent) favored a range of pro-life positions.

"A pro-life candidate, except perhaps for some of the coastal and New England states and the urban areas, still carries a definite advantage," Fitzpatrick tells news alert!. "The advantage is all based on voter intensity -- the difference between casual interest and political engagement. Many voters accept feel-good, women's-right-to-choose phraseology, yet it doesn't create passion that drives them to the ballot box. But the pro-life voter cares deeply about the life of the unborn."

Voters were asked to place their responses on a six-point scale ranging from not permitting abortion at all to permitting it at all times. Women were more pro-life than men, with 19 percent believing abortion should be prohibited in all circumstances (versus 17 percent in the population as a whole). Among women with children (38 percent of the electorate), 53 percent held a pro-life position.

According to Fitzpatrick, almost four in 10 Democratic women (38 percent of the Democratic electorate) also are "pro-life." However, only 4 percent of Democrats thought "abortion" was most important when deciding how to vote, a number evenly split between pro-life and pro-abortion Democrats. Overall, Republicans were more likely to be motivated by the "pro-life" issues than Democrats were to be motivated by "pro-choice" candidates.