New survey reveals that most religious people are not anti abortion (not even Catholics)

[cbayer]

http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2013/02/new-survey-reveals-that-most-religious-people-are-not-anti-abortion-not-even-catholics

Posted: Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:07



A new YouGov survey commissioned for the Westminster Faith Debates finds that 43% of people who identify with a religion are in favour of keeping or raising the current 24 week limit (compared with 46% of the general population), 30% would like to see it lowered (compared with 28%), and 9% support a ban (compared with 7%). The remainder of people say they 'don't know'.

Even though the Roman Catholic Church teaches that abortion is always wrong and should be illegal, only 14% of Catholics in this country are in favour of a ban.

A significant number of people believe that human life begins at conception, but this does not necessarily mean they are opposed to abortion.

44% of people believe that human life begins at conception, 30% at some time during pregnancy, 17% when the baby is born, and 8% don't know.

more at link

[trotsky]

1. Is that "most religious people" worldwide, or just in the UK? n/t

[LeftishBrit]

5. The UK. This is very consistent with the people whom I know.

On the whole, though there are some very noisy political 'pro-lifers' around, it is not a top issue for most religious people in the UK.

One has to remember that (a) in the UK, identifying with a faith is often mainly cultural, and does not always involve strong religious beliefs or practices (e.g. only about 10 per cent of the population attend a weekly religious service); and (b) that the Church of England, with some exceptions, are not overly preoccupied with abortion, and tend to regard it as undesirable in principle but often the lesser of the evils. But it's interesting that even the members of more strongly anti-abortion faiths tend not to support a ban.

An exception, as so often, is Northern Ireland, where the influence of the Paisleyite right-wing Protestants, as well as strong Catholics, has led to far harsher laws on abortion than in the rest of the UK.

[trotsky]

6. Yeah I suspect the picture isn't quite as rosy here in the US.

Last I heard, Catholics were fairly evenly split and of course Protestants in the US are overwhelmingly anti-choice.

[Shadowflash]

2. Yup.

Even Catholic hospitals will argue, in court, that a fetus is not a person if it'll keep their asses out of trouble.

[cbayer]

3. They did indeed, but their beliefs remain the same.

The article is about the general populace, which has no secondary gain in supporting choice as far as I can see.

[Goblinmonger]

7. You could AT LEAST point out this is only in the UK. n/t