The Duggar family, stars of the TV show 19 Kids and Counting, appeared in the Tennessee statehouse with 17 out of 19 children. The eldest, Joshua Duggar, presented the findings from a new poll commissioned by the Family Research Council. Credit: Emily Siner / WPLN
Exactly half of Tennessee voters support the constitutional amendment concerning abortion regulations, according to a new poll commissioned by a conservative Christian policy group Family Research Council.
It’s a shift from a Vanderbilt University poll earlier this year. In May, Vanderbilt found that the majority of respondents — 71 percent — said they would not vote for an amendment that gives lawmakers more power to regulate abortions.
The Washington D.C.-based Family Research Council, on the other hand, found that 50 percent of respondents said they supported the amendment. Less than a quarter said no and another quarter were undecided.
Part of the discrepancy could come from the wording: The Vanderbilt poll’s question summarized the amendment, while the Family Research Council asked about the exact language. Joshua Duggar, who heads the legislative action branch of the Family Research Council, credits the increase in support to awareness.
“If you look at the number of people who oppose it, it’s only 22 percent,” he says. “The more people learn about Amendment One, the more they like it.”
Duggar is one of the stars on the TV show 19 Kids and Counting. His parents and 16 of his siblings came to the Capitol from Arkansas on Monday to support the Yes on 1 campaign.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jeff Teague, head of Planned Parenthood of Middle Tennessee, has a different interpretation of the new poll results.
“There’s still a lot of confusion about what the actual language of the amendment truly means. I think that you can see that in the large number of undecided voters,” he says.
Early voting begins Oct. 15.
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