President Joe Biden promised to unite America, but his week-one slate of executive orders has proven extremely divisive. While Americans are divided on the “pro-life” or “pro-choice” labels, in-depth polling has found broad agreement in favor of policies restricting abortion. Yet Biden’s extreme abortion policies, including funding abortion domestically and overseas with taxpayer dollars, alienates the majority of Americans, and many who identify as Democrats or “pro-choice.”
A new Marist/Knights of Columbus (KOC) poll released Wednesday illustrated just how extreme Biden’s policies truly are.
“Amidst the harsh political divides in our country, clear bipartisan majorities support abortion restrictions and do not want their tax dollars paying for abortion abroad,” Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, said in a statement about the new poll. “Our polling has shown consistently over the past decade that policies that promote abortion on demand paid for by taxpayers are divisive and out of step with American public opinion.”
Indeed, Biden has staked out four abortion policies that fall far outside the mainstream, according to the poll.
1. The Mexico City Policy
On Thursday, President Biden will rescind the Mexico City Policy, which Democrats condemn as the “global gag rule.” The policy prevents U.S. taxpayer dollars from funding non-governmental organizations that perform abortions overseas or advocate for abortion overseas. Yet this policy enjoys broad support among Americans.
A whopping 77 percent of respondents in the Marist/KOC poll said they “oppose” or “strongly oppose” “using tax dollars to support abortion in other countries.” Only 19 percent said they support taxpayer funding for abortion overseas.
Even majorities of self-identified Democrats (55 percent), Biden supporters (58 percent), and pro-choice respondents (64 percent) said they opposed taxpayer funding for abortion overseas.
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2. The Hyde Amendment
The Hyde Amendment prohibits taxpayer funding for abortions in the U.S. While Biden long supported the Hyde Amendment during his decades in the U.S. Senate, he reversed course and opposed the amendment during the 2020 presidential election. Democrats have recently condemned the Hyde Amendment as “racist,” even though many pro-life Democrats have condemned abortion as a “black genocide” since abortion disproportionately kills black unborn babies.
Most respondents (57 percent) in the Marist/KOC poll said they “oppose” or “strongly oppose” “using tax dollars to pay for a woman’s abortion.” Only 38 percent said they support or strongly support taxpayer funding for abortion.
About a third of those who identified as pro-choice (34 percent), Democrat (31 percent), or Biden supporters (31 percent) said they opposed taxpayer funding for abortion.
Most respondents who identified as white (58 percent) or non-white (57 percent) said they opposed taxpayer funding for abortion.
3. Abortion restrictions
Although Biden identifies himself as a practicing Roman Catholic and regularly attends mass, he broadly supports the legal availability of abortion. While Biden has not explicitly said he supports making abortion legal at any stage of pregnancy up until birth, his record suggests that he does. Newsweek and PolitiFact have claimed that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris do not support abortion up until the moment of birth, but the outlets could not identify statements or policies explicitly limiting abortion to early phases of pregnancy.
Yet most Americans support legal restrictions on abortion at different points in pregnancy, according to the Marist/KOC poll.
Only 15 percent of respondents said, “abortion should be available to a woman any time she wants one during her entire pregnancy.” Most respondents said they would limit abortion to either the first six months of pregnancy (10 percent); the first three months of pregnancy (25 percent); cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life (28 percent); only to save the life of the mother (11 percent). Another 12 percent of respondents said, “abortion should never be permitted under any circumstance.”
This means a whopping 86 percent of Americans support more restrictions on abortion than Biden and Harris.
Facebook Suppresses Pro-Life Ad Slamming Biden and Harris Over Abortion Extremism
4. Roe v. Wade
During the campaign, Biden repeatedly pledged to codify Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court ruling striking down state laws on abortion, in a law passed by Congress and signed by the president.
Yet according to the Marist/KOC poll, most Americans support returning abortion law to the states.
Marist asked respondents, “Which comes closest to your view of what the Supreme Court should do when it reconsiders Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 ruling making abortion legal in the United States?”
About a third (31 percent) of respondents said the Court should “allow abortion to be legal without restriction at any time.” Nearly half (48 percent) of respondents said the Court should “allow certain restrictions on abortion as determined by each state.” Another 17 percent said the Court should “make abortion illegal.”
Even 42 percent of respondents who identified as “pro-choice” said the Court should allow the states to restrict abortion. Forty percent of self-identified Democrats and 37 percent of Biden supporters agreed.
Democrats like Biden often cite the fact that most Americans identify themselves as “pro-choice.” Yet in-depth abortion polling like this reveals that the Democrats’ pro-abortion platform is radical and out-of-step with a majority of Americans. So much for “unity.”
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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