Catholic Leader Calls out False Dichotomy in Abortion Polling

“The latest Gallup polling on abortion portrays a false dichotomy between ‘prochoice’ and ‘prolife,’” said Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice. “How people describe their instinctive reaction to the prochoice vs. prolife binary is very different to how they react when they or a loved one is facing an unintended or problem pregnancy. That’s the real issue. The figure of interest is the one that shows how many people think that abortion should be legal in at least some instances. That figure has consistently been between 80 and 85 percent over the past several years among Americans and among American Catholics, despite the best efforts of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Ensuring all those who seek abortion care get the help they need should be a much higher priority for our policymakers, who should be better informed about what women need, not the headlines that pollsters write.”

For the latest information about what Catholics think about abortion, other reproductive health issues and church-state separation, please see “The Facts Tell the Story: Catholics and Choice 2014-2015.”