Americans' Views on Abortion Are Complex and Not Well Captured by Past Polls

ThinkProgress: Polls Have Been Misleading You About What Americans Actually Believe About Abortion, by Tara Culp-Ressler:

Do you know where most Americans stand on abortion? Thanks to the way that we’ve been polling on the issue for the past several decades, probably not.

Most media coverage on the subject would lead you to believe that abortion evenly splits the nation. According to pollsters, the country has barely budged on this issue since the procedure was first legalized in 1973. The leading polling organizations often refer to Americans’ views on abortion as “closely divided” and say this finding has been “stable” for decades. “The trend lines look about as flat as they can be,” Daniel Cox, the research director at the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, said on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Tresa Undem, who has more than a decade of experience conducting public opinion research for nonprofits, doesn’t think that’s true. . . .

Vox: What Americans Think of Abortion: It's Not So Black and White, by Sarah Kliff:

"Abortion is killing a baby. But I'm not saying it's always wrong."

This was the first thing David King told me when I called him in late March and asked him talk to me about his views on abortion.

King and I didn’t know each other when I called. He’s a former dairy farmer who now works at a Walmart in rural Ohio. A few weeks earlier, he’d been among the 1,067 adults randomly selected for a Vox poll on abortion policy. He gave our pollsters, communications and strategy firm PerryUndem, an answer that interested me. When asked whether he identified as pro-life or pro-choice, he didn’t pick one. He picked both. . . .