Significant majorities of Americans oppose the use of tax dollars to fund abortions and want the Supreme Court to rule in favor of abortion restrictions, according to a new Marist Poll sponsored by the Knights of Columbus.

Those who identify as pro-life are about ten times more "intense" than those who are pro-choice.

The poll also found high support for limiting abortion to the first three months of pregnancy, with a substantial number in favour of limiting it to victims of rape or where the mother's life in danger.

It came as President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City policy restricting US funding for abortion and abortion education.  

Many of those who supported restrictions on abortion in the Knights of Columbus poll were from the pro-choice side of the argument. 

More than eight in ten Americans also overwhelmingly opposed the use of tax dollars to support abortion in other countries.

More than six in 10 Americans opposed the use of tax dollars to fund abortions in the United States. This included almost nine in 10 Donald Trump supporters and even nearly four in 10 Hillary Clinton supporters.

The poll showed many people on both sides of the debate wanted to limit abortion to the first trimester.

A majority of Clinton supporters - 55 percent - and more than nine in 10 Trump supporters - 91 percent - said they supported such limits.

Among Americans overall, nearly three-quarters (74 percent) want abortion restricted to, at most, the first trimester. Among those who want restrictions, 74 percent want the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in favor of those restrictions. This equates to about 55 percent of Americans who support such action by the Court.

Nearly six in 10 say restricting abortion to the first trimester is either an immediate priority or an important one.

This includes 78 percent of Republicans and nearly half of Democrats. Even among those who identify as pro-choice, more than four in 10 say restricting abortion is an immediate priority or important.

"There is a consensus in America in favor of significant abortion restrictions, and this common ground exists across party lines, and even among significant numbers of those who are pro-choice," said Carl Anderson, head of Knights of Columbus.

"This poll shows that large percentages of Americans, on both sides of the aisle, are united in their opposition to the status quo as it relates to abortion on demand. This is heartening and can help start a new national conversation on abortion."

Regardless of their views on whether abortion should remain legal, nearly six in 10 Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong. This includes eight in 10 Trump supporters and nearly four in 10 Clinton supporters.

The survey of 2,729 adults was conducted from December 12-19 last year by the Marist Poll and sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. 

Dr Barbara Carvalho, director of Marist Poll, based at Marist College in New York, told Christian Today: "I think the issue is a very complex one to most peope. What we generally tend to do is speak in terms of just the labels - pro-life and pro-choice - and force peole to take one position or the other."

The issue was more complex than the labels suggest.

Even nearly a quarter of millennials, perceived as being generally liberal, believe abortion should only be allowed in the first trimester.

"There is actualy a consensus that people really do want a good number of retrictions on abortion. When we try and debate this in terms of labels on one side or the other, we are really missing what peole feel around the country."