Survey: Most Americans Want Health Care Plan to Bar Abortion Funding
Most Americans (48 percent) believe any government-subsidized health care plan should be prohibited from covering abortion procedures, according to the results of a new survey.
Thirteen percent, meanwhile, believe such plans should be required to cover abortions, and 32 percent favor a more neutral approach with no requirements in either direction, reported Rasmussen Reports, which conducted the national telephone survey.
The survey also found that most Americans (52 percent) think it is too easy to get an abortion in America and even more (58 percent) say abortion is morally wrong most of the time.
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"Today's Rasmussen poll should remind lawmakers that including government funds for abortion on-demand in health care reform is not a winning policy for large segments of the American people," commented Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, when the survey's results were released one day before this past weekend's Values Voter Summit in Washington.
"If the Congressional leadership and the President fall on the sword of abortion coverage, pleasing their allies and weaving it into the fabric of our daily lives, they do so at the peril of the entire bill and their own political future," she added.
Among those surveyed by Rasmussen Reports who currently support passage of the health care reform legislation working its way through Congress, 22 percent said they want a prohibition banning abortion coverage and 22 percent want a mandate requiring such coverage. Forty-seven percent of the plan's supporters prefer the neutral approach, and nine percent is not sure.
Among those who oppose the plan, 72 percent favor a prohibition against coverage of abortions while five percent hold the opposite view.
An earlier poll by the Susan B. Anthony List similarly found that a majority of Americans either believe that it is wrong for the government to pay for abortions or they simply do not want the government to help fund health care plans that fund abortions.
Only 38 percent, meanwhile, said that the government has an obligation to provide abortion services under its public health care plan.
For its survey, Rasmussen Reports interviewed 1,000 likely voters from Sept. 14 to Sept. 15.
For the Susan B. Anthony List's survey, Public Opinion Strategies polled 800 registered voters on Sept. 1.
