A new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll offers some interesting—and, for pro-lifers, I think encouraging—data on how Americans view Dobbs and abortion policy, even as it also shows how surprisingly inept pollsters can be at asking questions on abortion.
1. On the question “Do you think your state should allow abortion [up to when]?” (p. 41), 37% say “Only in cases of rape and incest,” 12% say “Up to six weeks,” and 23% say “Up to 15 weeks.”
In short, after 50 years of pervasive pro-abortion propaganda in our culture and amidst the huge media outcry over the overturning of Roe, it would appear that a full 72% of Americans would like abortion to be banned at no later than 15 weeks and that 49% would like it to be banned at no later than 6 weeks. (To be sure, the poll presents only five options, so it’s unclear which option someone who, say, wants abortion to be legal for up to 10 weeks would pick.)
So much for the Democrat effort to enact the radical Women’s Health Abortion Act, which (among other things) would make abortion legal throughout the entirety of pregnancy—a result supported by only 10% of those polled.
I should add that this question isn’t worded as clearly as I would like. I think that the person being polled would understand the alternatives to “Only in cases of rape and incest” to be “Only up to X weeks,” but it would have been better to include the word Only. Conversely, given that every abortion ban includes an exception for the life of the mother, I don’t understand why the most protective alternative doesn’t read “Only in cases of rape, incest, and threat to the life of the mother.”
2. Somehow the pollsters drafted this confusing question (p. 40) on the overturn of Roe v. Wade: “Do you support or oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, which allows each state to decide its own standards for abortion instead of a set right?” (Emphasis added.)
The question of course makes sense only if the which clause is understood to modify the word decision. But anyone reading it could easily think that the question is stating that Roe “allows each state to decide its own standards for abortion.” Who knows how many of the 55% who said that they “oppose the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs Wade” might have had this misunderstanding? Why not instead ask something like:
“The Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn Roe vs Wade allows each state to decide its own standards for abortion? Do you support or oppose last week’s decision?”
3. We in fact learn from another question (p. 42) that only 25% of those polled “think it is better for abortion standards to be set by judges of the supreme court [rather than] by a vote of congress or by the legislatures of each individual state.” So that would suggest that most of the 55% who oppose Roe’s overturning either have soft opposition or don’t understand that Roe’s overturning means that Supreme Court justices will no longer be setting abortion policy for the country.
4. Demonstrating the fallacy of the false dichotomy, another question (also on p. 42) asks, “Do you think the Supreme Court decision has settled the law on abortion or has created turmoil?” How should those who welcome the return of abortion policy to the democratic processes answer that question? Surely it would be odd for them to be part of the 31% who somehow think that Dobbs has “settled the law on abortion.”
5. In another sign of the sloppiness of the pollsters, the headline on p. 43 currently reads: “Over a third of voters deem SCOTUS to be legitimate….” In fact, the reported result shows that 63% of those polled “consider the Supreme Court … to be legitimate.”