British Social Attitudes Survey

[1] The BSA involves in-depth interviews with over 3,300 respondents, selected using random probability sampling,[2] focused on topics including newspaper readership, political parties and trust, public expenditure, welfare benefits, health care, childcare, poverty, the labour market and the workplace, education, charitable giving, the countryside, transport and the environment, the European Union, economic prospects, race, religion, civil liberties, immigration, sentencing and prisons, fear of crime and the portrayal of sex and violence in the media.

[3] The survey is funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, government departments, quasi-governmental bodies and other grant-giving organisations.

[4] The proportion of people who believe abortion should be allowed if a woman does not want a child has increased gradually during the period from 1983 to 2016, from 40% in 1983 to 72% in 2016.

Similarly an increasing number of people believe abortion should be allowed if a couple cannot afford a child, which reached a high of 68% in 2016.

Over 90% of people have consistently believed that abortion is acceptable if the pregnancy is a result of rape.