The outcome of the abortion referendum is too close to call but over 70 per cent of people believe abortion should be permitted in certain circumstances, according to a newspaper opinion poll published today.
The poll shows 29 per cent in favour of the government’s amendment and 27 per cent against; 30 per cent were undecided with 14 per cent intending not to vote.
While the figures show, assuming an even distribution of the don’t-knows, that a YES vote will be narrowly carried on March 6th; when the traditional margin of error for opinion polls is accounted for, the proposal could be narrowly defeated.
The ICM poll conducted on behalf of Ireland on Sundayalso showed 60 per cent of people believe the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, should have agreed to debate the abortion issue on television.
When asked whether abortion should be available in Ireland, only 21 per cent of respondents ruled out the possibility entirely, leaving a surprisingly large 71 per cent favouring abortion in some circumstances with eight per cent not expressing a view.
Of the 71 per cent who favoured abortion in some circumstances, 14 per cent said it should be available on demand, 44 per cent said it should be available in the case of suicide risk with 13 per cent excluding the suicide option.
This indicates that well over half of respondents are actually against the Government’s amendment, which excludes suicide-risk as grounds for granting abortion.
This could be viewed as a logical contradiction of respondents favouring a Yes vote. Allied to 49 per cent of respondents indicating they would not vote or had not yet decided, the poll shows people are unclear about what the referendum means.
As was the case with the Nice referendum, not only are voters confused but they are willing to go against the party they consider themselves to be supporters of.
Only 38 per cent of people who regard themselves Fine Gael supporters will be following the party’s call for a No vote, while just over 50 per cent of Labour and Fianna Fail supporters indicate they will vote in accordance with the party’s wishes.
The ICM Research poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday last week among a sample of 1,005 adults.