Pew Research: Black Protestant Members More Likely to Support Abortion

For Immediate Release: Nov. 12, 2015

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This week, a new poll from the Pew Research Center reiterates America’s steadfast support of abortion access and changing views on homosexuality.

Pew found that support for abortion remains steady, with over half of Americans supporting safe and legal access. One notable shift, however, is that “those who belong to historically black Protestant churches are somewhat more likely to support legal abortion than in the recent past.”

On LGBT rights and community acceptance, “more than a third of evangelical Protestants now say homosexuality should be accepted by American society, up 10 points since 2007.”

You can read more on the recent Pew Research here.

Pew’s research is in line with the Public Religion Research Institute’s poll which found67 percentof African Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

In 2013, reproductive justice organizations, including Black Women’s Health Imperative, commissioned a study with Belden Russonello Strategists which found that 80% of African Americans agree when asked “regardless of how I personally feel about abortion, I believe it should remain legal and women should be able to get safe abortions.

These findings coincide with the fact that majority of Americans support access to safe, legal abortion.

• A recent Bloomberg Politics national poll found that 67% of Americans surveyed said Supreme Court was right to rule that women have a constitutional right to abortion.

• VOX: More Americans now consider themselves pro-choice than pro-life.

• 68 percent of Millennials don't want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. [Pew Research Center, 1/16/13]

• 64 percent of voters younger than 30 said that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 58% of voters 30 and older. [Pew Research Center, 11/26/12]

• Two-thirds (67 percent) of African Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. [Public Religion Research Institute, 7/26/12]

• A 2012 exit poll results show two-thirds of Latinos agreed abortion should be legal (66 vs. 28 percent who disagreed). In fact, Latino voters were more supportive of legal abortion than voters overall (59 percent overall supported legal abortion vs. 37 who disagreed). [ABC News, 11/12/12]

• 72 percent of Republicansthink abortion should be available. [New York Times/CBS News Poll, 2/14]