Poll: Public narrowly against defunding Planned Parenthood

Overall, nearly as many would shut down the government in order to not defund Planned Parenthood as would be willing to shut it down to defund the organization.  Catholics are closely divided on the matter of defunding, though their overall opinions mask a large gap between churchgoing and non-churchgoing Catholics.  Half of observant Catholics would defund Planned Parenthood; a plurality of those who don’t attend Mass regularly would not.

Fiorina’s comments also generated controversy over whether what she reported as seeing in the videos actually appeared in them.  In this poll, viewers draw different conclusions based on their pre-existing opinions.  In addition, groups that are opposed to abortion, like Republicans and conservatives, are more likely to have heard about the videos and more likely to have seen them.  More Republicans than Democrats and more than twice as many conservatives than liberals have watched the videos.