According to a Gallup study released on Friday, May 29, more and more American are starting to reveal their true liberal colors and it is for the first time in a long while that the liberals and conservatives make up equal percentages of the population.
The view that the population has on many social issues is shifting and although there are still areas in which people prefer to use black or white labels, Americans seem to be opening up more and more to the color gray.
The biggest shift in population mentality was revealed to have taken place in the way abortion is being viewed. In the Gallup poll, people were given five options on how they viewed the idea of abortion:
- Abortion should be permitted in every situation.
- Abortion should be permitted in most situations.
- Abortion should be permitted in just a few situations.
- Abortion should be illegal in any situation.
- No idea.
The majority of the answers received revealed that most Americans are in fact pro-choice. The survey also asked people who had chosen option 3, “Abortion should be permitted in just a few situations.” what they believe those circumstances could be and many of them were more lenient than they had been in the past.
The percentage of Americans who have declared themselves as pro-choice is the highest registered in 2008. However, many publications and extremist pro-life organizations are contesting the poll`s results and have come up with polls of their own which are saying that more than 55% of Americans wish to outlaw abortion.
They want to stop women from getting abortions on tax-payers money and they want to ban late-term abortion altogether. Late-term abortion is banned in several countries because this procedure presents great health risks for the person involved.
The pro-life supporters believe that many Americans are being tricked into labeling themselves as pro-choice and that the vast majority of them are still very much against social issues like abortion, same sex marriage and marijuana legalization.
All of the controversy created by both the Gallup as well as the other polls just goes to show how divided the U.S. is on social matters and it also showed that the group who is gaining most supporters is the one of the liberals.
However, this change of mind is not sure to last, so there is no saying what the next year`s poll regarding social issues will reveal.
Image Source: jillkonrath
