Topline
As abortion is once again a central issue ahead of November, polling suggests why Republicans have tried to downplay the issue, as Americans broadly support the procedure remaining legal, even as their levels of support vary when looking at various demographics and abortions later into a pregnancy.
Pro- and anti-abortion rights activists protest during the 50th annual March for Life rally in front … [+]
Key Facts
Broad support for abortion rights: Gallup polls show 85% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in at least certain circumstances as of May, higher than when polling began in 1975 (76%), while an Associated Press/NORC poll conducted in June found 70% think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Support has gone up post-Dobbs: Americans’ support for abortion being broadly legal has largely remained steady since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, with polling from Pew Research Center finding that it went up from 61% in March 2022 to 63% in 2024, while AP/NORC’s polling found a higher jump from 64% to 70% just from July 2023 to July 2024.
Steady support for Roe: Support for the Supreme Court’s abortion precedent in Roe v. Wade was broadly popular before it was overturned, with a November 2021 Quinnipiac poll finding that 63% agreed with the court’s ruling, and Gallup reports 60% believe overturning Roe was a “bad thing” as of May.
Moral acceptance grows: An increasing share of Americans believe abortion is morally acceptable; while the share believing abortion is morally wrong had outweighed the share accepting it for decades, the trend reversed in 2021, and Gallup now finds 54% believe it’s morally okay.
Still motivating Americans’ votes: Abortion was widely viewed as a motivator for voters in the 2022 midterms, and that trend is continuing, with Gallup finding a record-high 32% of voters said in May that they’ll “only vote for candidates for major offices who share their position on abortion,” and a Public Religion Research Institute poll released in May finding Democrats, women and younger voters are particularly likely to see abortion as a motivating factor in their vote.
Slim support for abortion bans: Gallup’s 2024 polling on abortion found only 25% of respondents are at least somewhat satisfied with the nation’s abortion laws, with 44% of those who are dissatisfied saying they want them to be less strict, and a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in February found 67% of women in states with abortion bans want the procedure to be at least mostly legal.
Most States Support Abortion Being Legal—Even Red Ones: The PRRI poll found majorities of residents in all but five states support abortion being at least mostly legal—with the exceptions being Arkansas (46% support it being legal), Idaho (45%), North Dakota (47%), South Dakota (47%) and Utah (45%)—and there was no state where more than 16% of respondents said abortion should be illegal in all cases.
Federal ban unpopular: A 79% majority of voters oppose a law that would ban abortion nationwide—including 64% of Republicans—AP/NORC’s June polling found, and a majority would also oppose federal bans on abortion after six weeks (73% opposed) and 15 weeks (60% opposed).
Legal access to abortion pills: As Republicans have fought the federal approval of abortion pill mifepristone—one of two drugs traditionally taken during a medication abortion—Gallup found 61% support the drug remaining legal as of May, while a 54% majority of respondents in an April Pew Research poll support medication abortion being legal.
Rights for fetuses: Pew’s polling found 35% of respondents agree with the statement that “human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights”—a belief that anti-abortion advocates believe justifies “ fetal personhood,” or classifying fetuses as people with constitutional rights, which would automatically outlaw abortion.
Effects of Roe being overturned: A Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted between March and May 2023 found 20% of OBGYNs “have personally felt constraints on their ability to provide care for miscarriages and other pregnancy-related medical emergencies” since Roe was overturned, and 67% of respondents in a June CBS News/YouGov poll said they’re concerned abortion bans put “pregnant women more at risk,” while KFF polling in February found one in seven women in states with abortion bans know someone who’s had difficulty accessing an abortion.
Support for abortion exemptions: A Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies (PORES)/SurveyMonkey survey released in October 2022 found 91% support abortion when the woman’s life is in danger and 86% support exceptions in the case of rape or incest, and AP/NORC’s June polling found 69% support protecting access to abortion for miscarriages and other medical emergencies.
When abortion support drops: Support for abortion drops when a person is further into the pregnancy, with the June AP/NORC poll finding 76% support allowing abortion after six weeks, while 54% support it after 15 weeks and only 30% support it after 24 weeks.
Partisan split: Democrats are statistically far more likely to support abortion rights than Republicans, with Pew finding only 41% of Republicans support abortion being at least mostly legal versus 85% of Democrats.
But not in all cases: A KFF poll conducted in May and June with Republican women found a significant 40% identify as “pro-choice,” and 79% support laws protecting abortions in medical emergencies while 69% support federal legislation protecting abortion in the case of rape or incest; only 13% want the procedure to be illegal in all cases.
The religious support abortion rights—mostly: Pew’s 2024 polling found Americans with religious affiliations are far more likely to oppose abortion than the nonreligious (86% of whom believe abortion should be legal), though PRRI found that with the exception of white evangelical Protestants, Latter-day Saints, Hispanic Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses, a majority of every other religious group polled favor abortion rights.
Gender split—not as big as you might think: Women are slightly more likely to support abortion than men, with Pew finding 64% of women want abortion to be legal versus 61% of men, and PRRI found LGBTQ Americans are the most supportive of abortion, with 82% backing abortion being legal as compared with 62% of heterosexual Americans.
Asian and Black Americans most supportive: Pew’s polling found majorities of every race support abortion being legal, though support was higher among Black (73% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases) and Asian (76%) respondents than those who are white and Hispanic (60% and 59%, respectively).
Support drops with age: The Pew poll found that while 63% of all age groups polled support abortion being legal in all or most cases, support largely declined with age, with 76% of 18 to 29-year-olds backing abortion rights versus 61% of respondents ages 30-49 and 57% of those 50-64—though a slightly higher 59% of respondents 65 and older backed it being legal.
Support increases with more education: Pew found support for abortion also increased with how much education a person has received, with 56% of people with a high school degree or less supporting abortion being at least mostly legal versus 64% who attended some college, 66% with a four-year college degree and 70% with a postgraduate degree (PRRI found a similar correlation).
What To Watch For
Abortion is expected to grow in prominence as an election issue with Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee, as the VP has led the Biden administration’s efforts on reproductive rights. Harris has been a much more vocal supporter on the issue than President Joe Biden, who faced criticism from the left for not even using the word “abortion,” and her campaign has already sought to take Trump to task on abortion, with Harris decrying a ban in Iowa that took effect Monday as a “Trump abortion ban.” Republicans, meanwhile, have tried to downplay their opposition to abortion: Trump has said he wants to leave the issue up to the states, and the GOP removed a call for a national abortion ban from its platform for the first time in decades. (It left in other language about “ fetal personhood” that would amount to an abortion ban, however, and abortion rights advocates believe Trump could still restrict abortion if elected.) Ballot measures involving abortion are also set to be on the ballot in at least six states—Colorado, Florida, Maryland, New York, Nevada and South Dakota—while measures in another six states are awaiting approval.
What We Don’t Know
How Harris’ support of abortion rights will change the race. A KFF poll in February suggested that while abortion rights supporters were largely in support of Biden, they still had reservations about his candidacy. Among voters who said abortion was their most important issue in the election—who are largely in favor of the procedure being legal—only 48% said they planned to vote for Biden, while 25% either planned to vote third-party or not vote at all. Only 38% said they trusted Biden over Trump to “move abortion policy in the right direction,” while 21% said they don’t trust either candidate. If Harris can win over some of those abortion-focused voters that Biden couldn’t, it could have a measurable impact on what’s expected to be a close election. Polling suggests Harris also still has more voters to persuade that a Trump presidency would be harmful for abortion rights, with the June CBS News/YouGov poll finding 55% either believe Trump’s position that he’d leave abortion up to the states or think he’d do nothing on abortion rights, while 31% believe he’d try to enact a national ban.
Tangent
Republicans’ bans on abortion rights have also raised fears they could next threaten access to other reproductive care, including in vitro fertilization and contraception. Polling shows those are also broadly popular: An AP/NORC poll conducted in June found 62% favor access to IVF procedures, including a 56% majority of Republicans. Pew similarly found in April that 70% of Americans believe having access to IVF “is a good thing.” AP/NORC’s polling in June also found a 67% majority of respondents would support a law that protects access to contraception nationwide. Only 10% would oppose such legislation.
Surprising Fact
Gallup found 54% of Americans now identify as “pro-choice” and 44% as “pro-life” as of May, which is a change from the 49% who identified as pro-choice and 47% who said they’re pro-life in May 2021—though “pro-choice” identification is slightly down from 55% in May 2022, when the Supreme Court’s ruling was leaked. The 2024 tally isn’t far off from the 56% and 33% who said the same in 1995, respectively, when Gallup first started polling, though Americans’ identification as “pro-choice” or “pro-life” has varied wildly in the nearly 30 years in between. Though at least a plurality of Americans have always supported abortion being legal in at least some circumstances in Gallup’s polling, more respondents actually identified as “pro-life” than “pro-choice” in 2019, 2013, 2012, 2010 and 2009.
Key Background
Abortion first became legal nationwide with the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the federal right to an abortion. The court then affirmed that ruling in 2016, when it ruled in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt that states cannot enact abortion restrictions that impose an “undue burden” on the procedure. Republican state lawmakers repeatedly targeted abortion with an eye toward getting the Supreme Court to reconsider its precedent, resulting in the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down Roe v. Wade in June 2022. More than a dozen states now have abortion bans in place as a result, with others having enacted bans that have since been blocked in court.
