The Country's Emerging Shift on Abortion

The Susan B. Anthony List, the antiabortion movement's answer to the pro-abortion rights group EMILY's List, set an ambitious organizing goal at the beginning of this year: getting supporters to send 300,000 letters and E-mails to Congress on abortion-related issues. But the group quickly surpassed that benchmark, recently tracking the millionth piece of congressional correspondence sent by a Susan B. Anthony List backer in 2009. "We used to have to nag and nag our members to get their voices heard," says Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Northern Virginia-based group. "Now it's not a matter of nagging. We're seeing a tidal wave of activism."

Antiabortion groups decry the "radical pro-abortion agenda" of the new president and his ascendant party, but at the same time that Democratic rule has proved an organizing boon for the movement. And a new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that the country as a whole has shifted in a more antiabortion direction. While supporters of legal abortion outnumbered abortion rights opponents by 54 percent to 40 percent as recently as last year, the new survey finds that Americans are now evenly split on the issue. Most Democrats now say they'd like to reduce the number of abortions, while conservatives have grown even more intensely antiabortion. "This is a really unusual shift," says Gregory Smith, a senior Pew researcher who helped author the survey report, released last week. "I'm struck by the large number of groups that have moved on the issue: men and women, whites and Hispanics, those with college degrees and those with none. It's a broad movement."

And it presents a challenge for Obama and his party. The Pew survey suggests that the country is growing nervous that Democrats will overreach on abortion rights. The debate raging over abortion coverage in healthcare reform is an example of how the issue can threaten Obama's broader agenda. But the report also points to an opportunity for the White House to allay the fears of moderates and some abortion foes by delivering on his promise to find common ground on the issue. "Folks are worried about progressive political leaders sweeping the concerns of pro-life people under the rug," says Rachel Laser, who works on culture war issues for Third Way, a Democratic-aligned think tank. "It's essential that the Democrats capture their trust."

Obama has said as much, and his administration is currently working on a plan to reduce demand for abortion. But the effort has been overshadowed by charges from antiabortion activists that the Democrats' healthcare reform plans include taxpayer-funded abortion coverage. Democrats insist their proposals use only private premiums to pay for abortions. Conservatives call the plans' segregation of private and government funds for abortion a "paper fiction" that undermines Obama's pledge to make healthcare reform abortion neutral. "Pro-life people who voted for this president feel a sense of betrayal," says Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life. She sees the Pew survey as "a reassuring demonstration that people can see through [Obama's] rhetoric."

A few demographic groups have resisted the trend toward a more antiabortion posture, including Obama's most loyal supporters: African-Americans, young people, and those unaffiliated with a religion. But the Pew survey shows that the most dramatic swings came among constituencies in which Obama made important inroads in 2008. Support for legal abortion plummeted by double digits among observant white mainline Protestants and white Roman Catholics, for instance, and dropped by 9 points among Democratic men.

But the survey also suggests that Obama's efforts to defuse the issue may be paying off. Though conservative opposition to abortion is hardening—with just 44 percent of Republicans saying the country should find middle ground on the issue, down from 56 percent in 2006—concern about abortion is actually falling. Just a quarter of conservative Republicans say it's a critical issue, down from one third in 2006.

And when Pew specifically asked respondents whether it should be more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, just 41 percent said yes. Still, two thirds said they want to reduce the number of abortions. Those findings could translate into broad support for Obama's approach to the issue, marrying support for abortion rights with a pledge to "reduce the need for abortion."

Abortion rights supporters, meanwhile, are much less concerned about the issue than they were under George W. Bush. A third of liberal Democrats cited abortion as a critical issue in 2006, while just 8 percent do now, according to Pew. With an ally in the White House, Pew's Smith says abortion rights supporters are "more relaxed."