A major new national poll conducted by PRRI finds a majority of Americans in most states want abortion legalized in most or all cases, and even in Republican states, only a small percentage want it completely illegal.
Just under two-thirds of Americans (64%) say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while roughly one-third (34%) say it should be illegal in most or all cases. More granularly, 30% say abortion should be legal in all cases, 34% say it should be legal in most cases, 25% say it should be illegal in most cases, and just 9% say it should be illegal in all cases.
The share of Americans who say abortion should be legal in most or all cases has continued to increase since PRRI began tracking abortion legality in 2010, when it was at 55%. The share of those who say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases has shrunk (from 42% in 2010 to 34% now), with the proportion who say abortion should be illegal in all cases seeing the largest decline (from 15% in 2010 to 9% now).
However, there has been little movement in attitudes about abortion’s legality in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June 2022. In March 2022, 64% of Americans felt that abortion should be legal, as did a similar share in June (65%). After Dobbs, support for abortion’s legality remained fairly constant in August (64%), September (62%), and December (65%).
Looking at the opposing viewpoint, the share of Americans who say abortion should be illegal in most cases has been stable, but the share who say it should be illegal in all cases has declined slightly over the past year: from 11% in September 2021 to 7% in December 2022.
Just under four in ten Republicans say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases (36% across 2022), while 63% say it should be illegal in most or all cases. Support for legal abortion among Republicans has mostly wavered between 30% and 40% since 2010, while support for abortion being illegal has mostly wavered between 60% and 70% since 2010.
Among Republicans, belief that abortion should be illegal in all cases has declined: in September 2021, 21% of Republicans said abortion should be illegal in all cases, compared to 14% who said the same in December 2022, after the Dobbs decision. Prior to 2022, roughly two in ten Republicans opposed abortion in all cases, a share that had held steady since at least 2010.
Republican women (17%) are about as likely as Republican men (14%) to say abortion should be illegal in all cases. However, in March 2022, 20% of Republican women believed abortion should be illegal in all cases, compared to 15% who said the same in December. Republican men’s attitudes did not shift significantly during the same time period (15% in March, 13% in December).
Nearly nine in ten Democrats want abortion to be legal in most or all cases (86% across 2022), including nearly half of Democrats (48%) who say abortion should be legal in all cases. Notably, however, support for abortion’s legality in most or all cases has gone up among Democrats, from 71% in 2010.
Throughout 2022, attitudes among Democrats overall remained relatively steady. However, the share of Democratic women who said abortion should be legal in all cases increased slightly, from 46% in March to 52% in December, while the share of Democratic men who said the same remained steady throughout 2022.
Views on abortion among independents generally mirror those of the country as a whole. Across 2022, 68% of independents said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while 30% said it should be illegal in most or all cases. Views about abortion legality among both independent men and women remained relatively steady through the year.
Of course the problem remains that red states are making abortion completely illegal, to the point of crinimalizing it for doctors and medical practitioners, and increasingly, women seeking abortions. If the vast majority of Americans, two-thirds, actually want access to abortion, the time to get rid of Republican lawmakers is now.
Sadly, that won't happen. No Republican who votes for one of the religious zealots believe that the women in their lives would ever actually enforce such a ban against them.
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