Recent Poll on Abortion

About 66% of U.S. adults support finding a "middle ground" on abortion-rights issues but have "split" views on the level of access to the procedure that should be permitted, according to a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey released Thursday, AFP/Yahoo! News. The poll, which surveyed 2,003 U.S. adults from July 6 to July 19, finds that 31% would prefer abortion be "generally available," 20% think it should be "available but under stricter limits than it is now," 35% think the procedure should be banned with exceptions in cases of rape and incest and to save the life of the woman and 11% think abortion should "not be permitted at all". "This reflects the fact that people realize that this is a very divisive issue for the society and that we would be better off with a compromise," Scott Keeter, Pew director of survey research, said. The survey also finds that 48% of U.S. adults support nonprescription access to emergency contraception, while 41% oppose it. In addition, 80% of U.S. adults say pharmacists should not be allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives, while 17% say they should be allowed to refuse, according to the survey. The poll has a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.