NARAL Releases Biased Abortion Poll, Most Surveys Show Americans Pro-Life 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 16, 2006
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — NARAL released the results of a biased internal poll it conducted claiming most Americans support abortion and are upset that members of Congress have voted for things like parental notification and not using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.
However, most independent surveys by reputable polling firms find a majority of Americans are pro-life.
Lake Research Partners conducted the survey for NARAL, but the agency is frequently used by pro-abortion candidates and it’s president, Celinda Lake, is an abortion activist hailing from Montana who frequently promotes candidates on the extreme pro-abortion end of the political spectrum.
Lake asked respondents a series of biased questions worded to illicit pro-abortion results.
The poll claims 77 percent of Americans "value freedom, privacy, and liberty – and the personal responsibility that comes with each."
Though the question doesn’t mention abortion, in an email NARAL sent to its membership touting the results, that LifeNews.com obtained, the pro-abortion group claims that means 77 percent of Americans "agree that the government and politicians should stay out of a woman’s personal and private decision whether or not to have an abortion."
That differs greatly from a CBS News poll conducted in January showing 55 percent of Americans took a pro-life position on abortion.
Some 33 percent said abortions should only be "permitted only in cases such as rape, incest and to save the woman’s life," 17 percent said they would limit abortion only to cases where a woman’s life is in danger and 5 percent said abortions should never be permitted.
Just 42 percent in the CBS News poll indicated they support legalized abortion.
The NARAL poll also claims that a majority (not saying how many) of voters would have serious doubts about candidates if they knew they took a pro-life stand on abortion.
Lake’s wording of the polling question prompted the results. it asked respondents if they would have a lesser opinion of a candidate if they heard the "candidate has repeatedly supported right-wing political extremists, making divisive attacks on abortion, and promoting policies that would take personal decisions out of the hands of a woman and her doctor, and put those decisions into the hands of politicians."
NARAL’s poll claims voters are "most intensely negative toward a candidate who supports pharmacist refusal for birth control and who opposes emergency contraception in the emergency rooms for rape and incest victims," but Lake’s summary of the results fails to include the question asked.
The NARAL survey claims 60 percent of Americans disapprove of votes Congress has taken on measure to limit abortions.
While Lake does not include the question asked in its statement on the poll, a March Zogby poll found 69 percent of voters agree with prohibiting federal taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions, 69 percent support parental notification for girls 16 or younger and by a 55 percent for girls 18 and younger.
Zogby found 56 percent of Americans back a 24-hour waiting period on abortion, 64 percent would charge criminals with a second crime for killing or injuring an unborn child in the course of an attack on a pregnant woman, and 69 percent don’t want their tax money to pay for abortions or promoting abortion in other nations.
NARAL’s poll also claimed Americans strongly oppose abortion bans like the ones in South Dakota and Louisiana. While NARAL says 65 percent of Americans disapprove of such laws, a July Mason-Dixon poll found just a 47-39 split against the ban with 14 percent undecided.
The biased wording produced atypical polling results and further evidence of that is found in the margin of error.
While the poll itself had a 3.1 percent margin of error, the margin of error from a sample of women voters classified by various socioeconomic indicators was a whopping 9.8, compared with 5 and 6 percent in most credible polls.
