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CNN Abortion Poll Favors Pro Life View More Than Other Pollsters

11/19/2009, by Proloy Bhatta

HIGHLIGHTS

• Almost 60% of adults are in opposition to public funding of abortion.
• CNN - 63% of Americans think abortion should either always be illegal or legal in a few circumstances.
• Running a poll of polls average of five additional pollsters, we find CNN's results to be an outlier.

CNN and CBS have released recent polls on abortion. The most pertinent aspect of abortion right now is whether or not public funds should be used for women to get abortions. The Stupak Amendment, written into the House version of the most recent health care bill, restricts the use of public funds.

Some Democrats don't like this but without the support of pro-life Democrats, they may not be able to pass a bill without it.

Do you support/oppose public funding of abortion?

Almost 60% of adults are in opposition to public funding of abortion.

Additionally, CNN found that 26% thought abortion should always be legal and 10% legal in most circumstances. That means they found a whopping 63% of adults thought abortion should either always be illegal or legal in a few circumstances.

When CNN conducted this same poll in June 2008, October 2007, and September 2006; their results were similar.

But CNN's results contradict the results from other pollsters. The poll of polls average show that 47% of adults believe abortion should either always be illegal or mostly illegal -- much lower than CNN's 63%.

Since the results from CNN contrast the most with the results from ABC, let's look at the question wording of the two polls.

ABC: "Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?"

CNN: "Do you think abortion should be legal under any circumstances, legal under only certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?"

What CNN does is they ask a two-pronged question. They first ask their sample whether they believe abortion should always be legal/illegal or some middle ground. When the subject states that they are in the middle ground, they ask an additional question.

If "legal under only certain circumstances": "Do you think abortion should be legal in most circumstances or only a few circumstances?"

There are two possible reasons the responses for CNN's poll were more "Pro-Life". First they say "legal in only a few circumstances" INSTEAD OF "illegal in most cases". Although pollsters and media people will report them equivalently, people may feel more comfortable saying "legal in a few circumstances" instead of "illegal in most circumstances". Second, the fact that their question was split up into two parts may have played a role.

This does not necessarily make CNN biased per say but biases the responses towards the pro-life viewpoint more so than any of the other pollsters.

Question wording and order play a key role in the responses to these issue polls, so we'll always analyze the results of such polls through the lens of the poll of polls averages -- so that we don't jump to conclusions based on the results of just one poll.

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