Abortion has been at the forefront since a draft opinion from the Supreme Court was leaked and published by Politico from the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. In the opinion, the Justices were poised to overturn Roe v. Wade. The news sent pro-abortion advocates into a frenzy. The final opinion is expected this summer.
A Wall Street Journal poll published this week found that most Americans support upholding Roe v. Wade. The findings are from a poll conducted with the nonpartisan organization NORC at the University of Chicago.
In the survey, 68 percent of respondents said they would not like to see the Supreme Court of the United States completely overturn Roe. On the other hand, 30 percent of respondents said they would support the Court overturning Roe.
The survey shows Americans have more-mixed feelings about restricting abortion access based on the length of the pregnancy. On banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, 34% of respondents were in support, 43% were in opposition and 21% said they neither supported nor opposed such a move. The numbers were similar for a ban after six weeks, with 30% of respondents in favor, 49% opposed and 19% with no view. A Journal poll in March found plurality support for a 15-week ban.
“There’s still obviously a lot of nuance in people’s abortion opinions,” said Jennifer Benz, vice president of public affairs and media research at NORC. She added that research shows that many people who say abortion should be legal for any reason also have limits on that view, especially when it comes to abortions later in pregnancy.
Some 57% of respondents said a woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if she wants it for any reason, the highest share since NORC began asking the question every few years starting in 1977. The share opposed to a woman having an abortion simply because she wants one, 41%, was the lowest on record. The poll’s 4 percentage point margin of error means that, while those results have changed significantly over time, they might not be statistically different from last year’s findings.
Fifteen week abortion bans in states like Mississippi are in line with abortion laws across the globe. Townhall reported last July, ahead of the Dobbs hearings, how a study conducted by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that abortion laws in Europe are typically 12 to 15 weeks gestation.
“No European nation allows elective abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, as is effectively permitted in several U.S. states, and America is one of only a small handful of nations, along with China and North Korea, to permit any sort of late-term elective abortion,” associate scholar and author of the study Angelina B. Nguyen said in its findings. “Mississippi’s law brings the United States a small step closer both to European and global norms.”
