Bad Knights of Columbus Poll about Millennials and Choice

The Knights of Columbus have a poll out (I know I know but go with me on this) that says that nearly 6 in 10 Millennials is anti-choice.

When I saw it I rolled my eyes a little because... how credible is a poll from the Knights of Columbus, right? I mean, we're not talking Newsweek Magazine or the CNN poll here. But a few different people have picked it up believing it is a credible scientific poll.

According to the details

"Data were collected from December 23, 2009 through January 4, 2010 using an online, probability-based panel..."

Imagine if we put up a poll on our website and asked you all to take it. That's about as scientific as this poll is.

Here is some real scientific data. From the Guttmacher Institute nearly a third of all unwanted pregnancies end in abortion.

• However, for the first time since the early 1990s, overall teen pregnancy rates increased in 2006, rising 3%. It is too soon to tell whether this reversal is simply a short-term fluctuation or the beginning of a long-term increase.
• Black and Hispanic women have the highest teen pregnancy rates (126 and 127 per 1,000 women aged 15–19, respectively); non-Hispanic whites have the lowest rate (44 per 1,000).
• The pregnancy rate among black teens decreased 45% between 1990 and 2005, more than the overall U.S. teen pregnancy rate declined during the same period (41%).
• Eighty-two percent of teen pregnancies are unplanned; they account for about one-fifth of all unintended pregnancies annually.
• Two-thirds of all teen pregnancies occur among 18–19-year-olds.
• The reasons teens give most frequently for having an abortion are concern about how having a baby would change their lives, inability to afford a baby now and feeling insufficiently mature to raise a child.
• Six in 10 minors who have abortions do so with at least one parent's knowledge. The great majority of parents support their daughter's decision to have an abortion.

Just some quick facts that are a little more realistic about where young people stand on abortion. While this poll wants people to believe that young people are against it, what it doesn't clarify is if young people are pro-choice. You can be against abortion AND pro-choice in fact... everyone I know who is pro-choice is against abortion. Secondly, the poll doesn't clarify if these same young people believe that abortion should be illegal or not. Many people are against abortion but recognize the right of other people to make their own choices about their health, but again the poll doesn't address that either.

Perhaps next time they could be a little more scientific, rather than attempting to manifest data to support their own political ideology.