by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor

March 12, 2008

Nashville, TN (LifeNews.com) -- A new poll of Tennessee residents finds very few agree with presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton that all abortions should be legal. Most state residents either want all abortions illegal or want abortions limited to very few circumstances, though the poll didn't define which ones.

The latest Middle Tennessee State University poll finds almost 77 percent of state residents want more limits on abortions or abortions prohibited.

Some 23.7 percent said abortions should be legal "under no circumstances" while 53.2 percent said they should be legal under "some circumstances," though the poll never defined those circumstances.

Yet, only 18.2 percent of Tennessee residents side with Obama or Clinton in saying that abortions should be legal under "any circumstances."

These percentages are virtually identical both to those observed last fall and also to those observed in fall 2005. The new MTSU polling data follows a vote by a Tennessee House committee to kill a constitutional amendment that would nullify a state Supreme Court decision misusing the privacy clause in it to create an unlimited right to abortion.

The Senate had already approved the measure but the resolution now appears dead for the session.

Brian Harris of Tennessee Right to Life told LifeNews.com the results "underscore again how out of step our state’s radical pro-abortion policy remains."

“It is critical that Tennesseans be allowed to decide our state’s abortion policy rather than a handful of activist judges who have no respect for the dignity of unborn human life," he said.

According to Dr. Ken Blake, director of the poll, conservative Tennessee voters are more likely to oppose abortion than more liberal voters.

“Tennesseans who fall middle-to-left on the political spectrum are less supportive of restricting abortion than Tennesseans who fall middle-to-right," he said.

Blake said Christian voters are more likely to oppose abortions as well.

The poll also comes on the heels of exit polling data of Republican voters following the presidential primary there. The data found an overwhelming majority if Republicans are pro-life and want all or most abortions illegal.

The exit poll found 75 percent of Tennessee Republicans oppose all or most abortions while just 22 percent want all or most abortions legal.

Breaking down the numbers further, 33 percent of GOP voters in Tennessee want all abortions illegal, 42 percent want most illegal, 15 percent want most legal and just 7 percent side with Obama and Clinton as wanting all abortions to remain legal.



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