Half of U.S. college-age adults don’t know Planned Parenthood offers abortions: poll

by Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 22, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nearly half of college-aged young adults (48 percent) are unaware that Planned Parenthood performs abortions, according to a poll commissioned by Students for Life of America.

In a letter to Democrat and Republican leaders Friday, SFLA President Kristan Hawkins wrote that the results of a new survey conducted by the polling company inc./WomanTrend “showed little connection to the overwhelmingly liberal attitudes lazily ascribed to these voters - confirming an increasing pro-life trend among Americans while presumably giving Big Abortion heartburn over the battles ahead.”

Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America.

Although most young adults identified as “pro-choice,” the plurality (27 percent) said banning abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the mother’s life was the legal limitation they favor most. Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of respondents (74 percent) said they favored banning the practice of sex-selection abortions.

The survey also held surprising results for the group as a voting bloc, said SFLA. Fully 77 percent said they planned to vote in the November 2012 elections. Although such surveys are “notoriously culpable” of inflating predictions of actual turnout, noted the group, the number indicates that the level of enthusiasm for the 2008 elections will reappear this year.

In addition, while young adults polled were generally “pro-contraception,” SFLA pointed out that the plurality (42 percent to 24 percent), in every demographic category, said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate that supported forcing religious groups to cover employees’ birth control.

While the majority of young adults still said they would support Obama, mentioning the president’s little-reported vote against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act as an Illinois state senator led one in three of those surveyed to say they were “less likely” to vote for him. Among undecided voters, 43 percent said the same.

The survey was conducted by the polling company, inc./WomanTrend, and interviewed 805 adults online ages 18 to 24 from May 25-June 1, with controls to ensure the respondents were representative of the American young adult population.