56% of Young Adults Don't Know What Roe v. Wade Is

Pew takes a poll some 40 years later

By Mark Russell, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 17, 2013 10:47 AM CST

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56% of Young Adults Don't Know What Roe v. Wade Is — FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 24, 2011 file picture, anti-abortion and pro-choice activists stand next to each other in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington during a rally on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Americans, regardless of generation, are deeply conflicted as they wrestle... (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Forty years after Roe v. Wade—the decision was handed down on Jan. 22, 1973—abortion is at last fading as a major hot-button issue in the United States, reports the Los Angeles Times. In fact, according to a new poll by Pew Research Center, only 44% of the under-30 set know that it was the Supreme Court case that dealt with abortion. Among the Pew findings:

Only 18% of all those polled consider abortion a "critical" issue, down from 28% in 2006.

Support for Roe v. Wade has held pretty steady at 63%, up slightly from 60% in 1992.
46% of Republicans would like to see Roe v. Wade overturned, versus just 20% of Democrats and 28% of independents.
Among all those polled, 7% thought Roe v. Wade was about school desegregation, while 5% thought it was related to the death penalty and another 5% thought it dealt with environmental protection.

(More Roe v. Wade stories.)

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