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Public Still Backs Abortion, but Wants Limits, Poll Says http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/011698abortion-pol.html Politics The New Bork Times ON THE WEB Home Sections Contents Search Forums Help Medicare or Medifare? www.policy.com January 16, 1998 Public Still Backs Abortion, but Wants Limits, Poll Says Results of The New York Times/CBS News Poll Abortion, 25 Years After Roe V. Wade Forum Join a discussion on the 25th Anniversary of Roe V. Wade By CAREY GOLDBERG with JANET ELDER T wenty-five years and nearly 30 million abortions after the Supreme Court's landmark Roe V. Wade decision, the American public still largely supports legalized abortion but says it should be harder to get and less readily chosen, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll shows. At base, the country remains irreconcilably riven over what many POLL consider the most divisive American issue since slavery, with half ABORTION: 25 Years After the population considering abortion murder, the poll found. Roe V. Wade Despite a quarter-century of lobbying, debating and protesting by the camps that call themselves "pro-choice" and "pro-life," that schism has remained virtually unaltered. But beneath that basic divide, public opinion has shifted notably away from general acceptance of legal abortion and toward an evolving center of gravity: a more nuanced, conditional acceptance that some call a "permit but discourage" model. Almost half of those polled said it was too easy to get an abortion these days. Public support for legal abortion plummets from 61 percent if it is performed in the first three months of a woman's pregnancy to only 15 percent in the second three months. And a few reasons sometimes given for choosing abortion have become less persuasive. In 1989, for example, when people were asked whether a pregnant woman should be able to get a legal abortion if her pregnancy would force her to interrupt her career, 37 percent said yes and 56 percent said no; in 1998, only 25 1 of 6 01/16/98 15:47:13