About 25 years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing the late George Gallup, Jr., the esteemed pollster whose father founded Gallup Polls.

One of the things Gallup, Jr. said that I’ve never forgotten was his response to my question: Is America pro-abortion rights or pro-life?

He said 20% of Americans are strongly pro-choice, 20% are strongly pro-life, and the other 60% are in the “mushy middle: They can go either way depending what you ask and how you ask. I imagine that is still roughly the case.

Fast-forward to this election season, and abortion is on the ballot again, directly or indirectly.

Abortion on the Ballot

Obviously, the key presidential candidates and their teams differ greatly on this, as do others running for office. But abortion is more directly on the ballot in 11 states that have referenda dealing with the issue. One of those is Florida, which is generally a pro-life state.

Since Roe was overturned, some states have voted to allow even more abortions than they would have accepted before. For example: Is Ohio pro-life? If so, why did they vote for abortion up to the moment of birth last year? Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, remarks that if given a choice between allowing either zero abortions or abortion without any restrictions, Americans will choose the latter.

Dr. Chris Leader of Vote Your Faith has studied the ballot initiatives on abortion. As noted, Florida has Amendment #4 on the ballot. A “yes” vote on that referendum is a vote for abortion up to the moment of birth.

Surprisingly, some polls find Americans are far more pro-life than the mainstream media would have us believe.

A Shift in Thinking

I interviewed Leader for a radio segment on this recently. He told our listeners: “What we found at the America First Policy Institute through a Rasmussen poll we commissioned is that 73% of Americans now believe there are two lives involved in any abortion — the life of the mother and the life of the baby.”

He noted that that finding is very different than those of polls conducted in the 1990s, where it was hard to get people to recognize the life of the baby. This new shift in thinking is a great improvement to the pro-life cause.

Furthermore, Leader said that the poll also revealed that 92% of Americans oppose late-term abortion, up to the moment of birth — or even after birth — and that  71% of Americans believe there should be some legal limits to abortion, though we disagree about what those limits should be. Thus, the left’s hardcore position is out of step with the majority of Americans on this point.

Know What You are Supporting

If you support abortion, do you know what you are actually supporting? In testimony before Congress, Dr. Anthony Levatino, an OB/GYN, explains a common abortion procedure — what they actually do in second-trimester abortions. These are not the majority, but thousands of them are conducted in America every year.

Levatino used to perform abortions (more than 1,200), before he became pro-life. How did that happen?

“One day, after completing one of those abortions, I looked at the remains of a preborn child whose life I had ended, and all I could see was someone’s son or daughter. I came to realize that killing a baby at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason, is wrong,” he said.

But what about first-trimester abortions? Surely they are justified, argue some. But Lila Rose’s organization, Live Action.org, shows this, too, is a lie. And then there are third-trimester abortions.

Abortion may be sold in the name of “choice,” but Dr. Ingrid Skop, another OB-GYN, notes that many women feel they are being forced to abort their children. She writes, “Some 20-60 percent of women obtaining abortions may desire their pregnancy but experience pressure or coercion to terminate.”

We Need a Culture of Life

Our Declaration of Independence, our nation’s birth certificate, says that our Creator has endowed us with certain unalienable rights — the first one being the right to life. But abortion undermines that right, and thus all the others.

If we continue down this pro-abortion path, future generations will look at us with horror in the same way we look at previous Americans who blithely accepted human slavery as the norm.

One day God will hold us all accountable for these things, including how we vote on these matters. May God send a true revival, leading to a culture of life.

Dr. Jerry Newcombe is the executive director of Providence Forum, a division of Coral Ridge  Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air contributor. He has written/co-written 33 books, including (with D. James Kennedy), What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? and (with Dr. Peter Lillback), George Washington’s Sacred Fire.