Abortion in Australia - Public Opinion

Public Opinion

Since at least the 1980s, opinion polls have shown a majority of Australians support abortion rights.

• In a 1987 Saulwick poll, a core of only about 7% of Australians would not approve of abortions under any circumstances.
• In a February 2005 ACNielsen poll, as reported in The Age, 56% thought the current abortion laws, which generally allow abortion for the sake of life, health, or economic factors, were "about right," 16% want changes in law to make abortion "more accessible," and 17% want changes to make it "less accessible."
• A 2006 poll, conducted by Roy Morgan Research, asked, "Do you approve of the termination of unwanted pregnancies through surgical abortion?" 65% of the Australians polled stated that they approved of surgical abortion and 22% stated that they disapproved of it.
• A 2009 study of polls conducted during Australia's 2007 federal elections found that a clear majority of both Labor Party and Liberal Party voters support abortion rights. The study also showed that 77% of winning candidates in the 2007 election favored an unrestricted approach to abortion.
• A 2010 nationally representative study of Australians over 18 years published in The Medical Journal of Australia found that 61 per cent said abortion should be lawful without question for a woman in her first trimester of pregnancy, while 26 per cent said it should be lawful depending on the reason. In the second trimester (12 to 24 weeks), support for outright lawful abortion was 12 per cent, while 57 per cent said it depended on circumstances. For third trimester or late-term abortions, 6 per cent said it should be outright lawful while 42 per cent said it depended on circumstances and 48 per cent said it should be unlawful.