3 seconds ago 2009-11-10T04:52:47-08:00
Polls taken around the time of previous Supreme Court nominations typically found a small majority of Americans who said that nominees should be required to state their positions on abortion. For example, 55 percent said that about Samuel Alito in a 2005 Quinnipiac Poll, and 52 percent said that about John Roberts in a 2005 AP-Ipsos poll.
We don't know of any polls that have asked it about Sotomayor, so we don't know for sure what the public would say this time.
We do know that a slim majority of Americans say they generally think abortion should be legal under most circumstances. We last measured that in an AP-GfK poll just a few weeks ago, when 51 percent of those polled said abortion should be legal in most cases. Some 45 percent said abortion should be illegal in most cases. The American public's views on abortion have remained remarkably stable in the past few years, though nuances in how questions are framed can produce different results.
-Trevor Tompson, AP polling director, Washington
