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Why it's difficult to gauge Americans' support for abortion rights

Why it's difficult to gauge Americans' support for abortion rights (CNN)Republican-run state governments are clearly aiming for a Supreme Court showdown over Roe v. Wade. Georgia recently passed a law banning most abortions after six weeks, and Alabama just passed a near-total abortion ban. Both efforts are part of more than a dozen such successful and unsuccessful attempts this year. Not surprisingly, the blowback has been stiff from abortion rights groups and politicians. Some have even called for a boycott of Georgia. The collision between the two sides might make you believe that we have two well-defined sides when it comes to the issue of abortion. And while there is clearly some consistency, abortion is a rather tricky issue because it's not clear how many in the middle actually feel about it. Depending on how you ask about abortion rights, Americans are either overwhelmingly in favor of them or they are split down the middle. So if you're left a little confused about where Americans stand on abortion rights, that's understandable. The clearest takeaway is that there are some Americans who are clearly on either side of the divide, while for many it isn't as clearly defined. How the question is phrased definitely matters. It's not entirely clear that Democrats or Republicans have the upper hand in the abortion debate. Every single recent poll indicates that Americans are more likely to be in favor of abortion rights than not. A Pew Research Center poll from late last year found that 58% of Americans say abortion should be always or mostly legal, compared with 37% who say it should be always or mostly illegal. This mostly lines up with 2018 Gallup polling that discovered that 60% of Americans think first trimester abortions should generally be legal and 64% don't want Roe, which guaranteed the right to an abortion in the first trimester, to be overturned.Indeed, anti-abortion ballot measures have at best a mixed history in recent years. Personhood ballot measures have gone down in defeat in many states. Even in the deep red state of West Virginia, an amendment that said women didn't have the right to abortion barely passed in 2018. These data points might suggest Democrats and abortion rights activists have the upper hand in the abortion debate. But other polling and Republicans' ability to continue passing anti-abortion laws suggest that it's not a clear-cut win. At least part of the problem for Democrats and abortion rights activists has to do with something that dogs liberals in general. Many people will say they support liberal issues, while, at the same time, culturally identifying themselves with conservative causes and politicians who believe the opposite. Republican Mitt Romney, for example, won 40% of voters in 2012 who said abortion should mostly be legal. By the time Romney ran for president, he was opposed to most types of abortion.Another way to think about the abortion debate is to declare oneself as either "pro-choice" (i.e. pro-abortion rights) or "pro-life" (i.e. anti-abortion). This is the

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