Can you guess where Americans stand on abortion?
Test your knowledge of public sentiment on abortion, IVF and more.
For decades, many Americans considered abortion a settled debate. From 1992 to 2020, anywhere from 23 to 39 percent of adults didn’t consider it a major voting issue, according to regular polling from Gallup. But in June 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in its ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, that all changed. As states introduced abortion bans and lawsuits ping-ponged through the court system, the issue took on new pertinence for many voters.
During the 2022 midterm elections, abortion proved to be a defining issue, and many Democrats are banking on it remaining one in the 2024 election. But where exactly do Americans stand on this divisive issue now, and how might it impact their vote come November? Test your instincts to see if you can guess what recent polls found.
Let’s start with how Americans' views on abortion have changed over time. How big of a shift do you think has occurred over the past decade, and in which direction?
That’s a pretty significant increase, and it demonstrates how out of line the Dobbs decision was with the general public’s views. Anti-abortion activists and lawmakers spent years trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, but when they achieved their goal, the public was suddenly faced with the reality of what that meant — and they didn’t like it. Consider the current breakdown between voters who favored the Dobbs decision and those who opposed it:
It’s clear the country is pretty staunchly opposed to Dobbs. But simply having an opinion on a particular issue doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll change how people vote. There are a lot of issues that Americans rank as more important than abortion, such as the economy and immigration. How do you think voters' views on abortion will or won’t affect their vote for president this year?
So the vast majority of voters are at least taking abortion into consideration when deciding whom to support for president. But abortion isn’t the only reproductive-health issue being debated lately.
Anti-abortion activists have now set their sights on banning or limiting fertility treatments, which help people who struggle to have children get pregnant. The Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos are children, leading many fertility clinics to pause services and prompting the state to pass a law to protect patients and providers. The decision thrust this new debate into the election-year conversation.
The Supreme Court is continuing to hear abortion-related cases, including a challenge to access to mifepristone, a medication that induces abortion and is used in early-pregnancy abortions as well as some miscarriages. How do you think Americans feel about how easy it should be to access mifepristone?
Polling reveals Americans’ views on abortion are a lot more liberal than some hardline anti-abortion politicians may like, and the legal turmoil around abortion has only made it more top-of-mind for many voters. This has been a major weakness for Republicans and, if it continues to be a dominant issue through 2024, would likely hurt the GOP again. The biggest question is where access to abortion will land on the long list of issues voters are considering as they head to the polls.
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