Most Americans want Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade, poll shows
Majorities of Americans want the Supreme Court to uphold Roe v. Wade, according to a new poll taken after a leaked draft opinion indicated the justices are on the verge of overturning the landmark 1973 case.
A Wall Street Journal/NORC poll released Thursday found 68% of respondents think the ruling legalizing abortion nationwide should not be overturned, while 30% said the justices should strike it down. That’s an increase of 10 percentage points from a Gallup survey in June of last year that found 58% opposed overturning Roe while 32% supported it.
A second Gallup poll, released Thursday, showed that 55% of Americans identify themselves as pro-choice, up from 49% last year and the most since 56% identified as such in 1995. Just 39% of Americans identify as pro-life in the poll, the lowest figure since 1996.
Also, for the first time in Gallup’s polling, a majority of Americans — 52% — say that abortion is morally acceptable, while the 38% who find it morally wrong is a new low for the survey.
In the Wall Street Journal survey, 57% of Americans believe a woman should be able to get an abortion for any reason — the highest percentage since NORC began asking the question in 1977 — while 41% say they oppose a woman getting an abortion simply because she wants one – the lowest on record.
Meanwhile, 35% of respondents to the Gallup poll say abortion should be legal under any circumstances, an increase of three percentage points over last year, while just 13% say the procedure should be illegal in all circumstances — down from the 19% who said so last year and the lowest level of support recorded by Gallup for the position since 1995.
While majorities want Roe v. Wade to remain in place, support for abortion restrictions fluctuate depending on the proposal.
Asked by the WSJ poll about banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, 34% say they support that, 43% opposed it, and 21% say they they neither support nor oppose.
Asked about a ban after six weeks, 30% were in favor, 49% were opposed and 19% expressed no view.
“There’s still obviously a lot of nuance in people’s abortion opinions,” Jennifer Benz, vice president of public affairs and media research at NORC, told the Journal.
In the Gallup survey, 67% of respondents said abortion should be legal in the first three months of a pregnancy, but just 36% said the same for the second trimester and only 20% said it should be legal in the third trimester.
The Wall Street Journal poll also found 44% of Americans want the Supreme Court to be responsible for abortion law, rather than state legislatures and governors (20%), Congress (17%), and state courts (15%). However, the same survey found that two-thirds of Americans — 66% — say the high court’s rulings are based on the justices’ political views, rather than the Constitution and the law (33%)
“I personally don’t agree with abortion, but I don’t think there should be laws banning women from having abortions. The option should be available,” Katrina Jones, 46, of Fort Worth, Texas, told the newspaper.
The poll was taken after a draft Supreme Court decision written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to the public. In the draft, Alito contended that “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” and that the “decision has had damaging consequences.”
“In my state, it’s being used as campaign talk. I don’t think it’s sincere about saving children’s lives,” Jones, who doesn’t identify with a political party, said.
Norine Woodruff, 63, said she used to support abortion rights but her views changed over the years.
Woodruff, who usually votes Republican, said she backs the court overturning Roe v. Wade and supports the states passing their own abortion laws, but still believes there should be access in cases of rape or incest, serious birth defects of a risk to the mother’s health.
“My opinion has changed dramatically from the late ’70s and early ’80s, when I had at least five or six friends that had them. Each one of them, I ended up crying with them,” Woodruff, of Forest Lake, Minn., said. “It just went too far.”
There’s still a large share of people – 66% – who believe Supreme Court decisions are based on the justices’ political views, instead of the Constitution and the law (33%).
The Wall Street Journal poll surveyed 1,071 adults between May 9 -17.
It has a plus/minus 4 percentage points margin of error.
The Gallup poll surveyed 1,007 adults between May 2-22.
It has a plus/minus 4 percentage points margin of error.
