Since 1975, Gallup has been surveying Americans on their views regarding abortion, making it a valuable resource for examining public opinion. According to the latest survey conducted in May and released on Wednesday, Americans are now less supportive of the right to abortion compared to after the Dobbs leak in May 2022, but more supportive than in the years leading up to Dobbs.
In 2021, 49 percent of Americans identified as pro-choice, while 47 percent identified as pro-life, with the margin increasing to a 16-point advantage for the pro-choice side immediately after the Dobbs leak. However, in the latest survey, the advantage has been cut in half to an eight-point margin, with 52 percent identifying as pro-choice and 44 percent as pro-life.
In terms of abortion policy, Gallup found that the country is now evenly split between those favoring expansive versus restrictive access to abortion, with 49 percent saying it should be legal in only a few or no circumstances. A majority of Democratic voters now say abortion should be legal under any circumstances, with 60 percent in favor, a ten-point jump from 2021.
Gallup also found that 69 percent of respondents say abortion should be legal in the first trimester, while 55 percent say it should be illegal in the second trimester, and only 22 percent say it should be legal in the last three months of pregnancy. This finding is relevant to the national debate among elected Republicans who say there should be a federal limit on elective abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy and those who say the federal government should have no role.
While there is a big divide in public opinion on abortion by trimester, the pollsters’ mention of exceptions matters more than the precise point in pregnancy at which a ban kicks in. For instance, a May 2022 Fox News poll found that 50 percent favored a law that bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, except in the case of a medical emergency.
However, issue-polling is often tricky and only provides a window into how voters think, not necessarily how they will act. In 2022, pro-life ballot measures all failed, while pro-life governors who signed heartbeat bills or laws generally protecting life at conception fared well. This suggests that abortion is just one issue among many motivating voters, and Gallup’s polling continues to show that those motivations are more nuanced than much of the media would have you believe.
