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A majority of Americans say they are now more likely to vote for a congressional candidate this fall who supports enacting federal legislation to guarantee the right to an abortion, a new poll shows.
The revealing survey comes just days after the US Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling that had guaranteed the right.
A little more than 60 percent of registered voters say the courts decision has made them more likely to vote in the November midterm elections, according to the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll conducted over the weekend. Broken down by party, there were 78% of Democrats who said they are more motivated to vote now, compared to 54% of Republicans and 53% of independents.
When they get to the polls, 62% of the surveyed registered voters said the ruling is motivating them more to cast ballots for a candidate who would support a federal law to restore Roe versus Wade and the right to abortion. Thirty-six percent of respondents said they would vote against a candidate for that reason, while 13% remained unsure.
There remains a predominant split between Republican and Democratic voters over the issue, with 67% of GOPers saying they would vote against a candidate who would promote abortion rights, while 86% of Democrats saying they would back such a candidate.
The survey also found that most Americans 55% believe that the decision was based on politics as opposed to law, while 36% of respondents said the ruling was based on law.
Americans Tend To Think That Abortion Is Rare Especially Well
Social science shows that we tend to underestimate the frequency of experiences we hear less about. And that makes sense if all your neighbors are talking about crime, or you heard about it a lot on the nightly news, it would be fair to start wondering whether a local crime wave has occurred. We overestimate things like teen pregnancy, perhaps because there are entire reality shows devoted to the subject.
“We overestimate the amount of people who get killed by gunshots and underestimate the amount killed by heart attacks, because we see a lot more news about gunshots,” says Eric Beasley, a sociologist who studies risk perception at Michigan State University. “Abortion is hidden and not talked about, so nobody knows how often it happens.”
Our poll finds groups of Americans that have the highest abortion rates low-income and less educated women tend to more accurately guess the prevalence of abortion. Demographics with lower abortion rates, meanwhile, tend to have lessaccurate guesses.
More educated and higher-income Americans are especially likely to believe that abortion is rare.
For example, 54 percent of Americans without a college degree underestimate abortion rates, compared with 70 percent of those with graduate degrees. And 51 percent of those earning less than $50,000 underestimate the frequency of abortion, compared with 69 percent of those earning more than $175,000.
From : Majority Of Americans Dont Want Roe V Wade Overturned
Politically, abortion has been a stronger voting issue for Republicans than for Democrats. This poll found that abortion ranks as the second-most-important issue for Republicans in deciding their vote for president, behind immigration. But for Democrats, it is fifth behind health care, Americas role in the world, climate change and personal financial well-being.
The poll also notably found the highest percentage of people self-identifying as pro-choice, those who generally support abortion rights, since a Gallup survey in December 2012. In this survey, 57% identified that way versus 35%, who called themselves pro-life, those who are generally opposed to abortion rights.
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The percentage self-identifying as pro-choice is an increase since a Marist Poll in February, when the two sides split with 47% each. The pollsters attribute that shift to efforts in various states to severely restrict abortion.
The public is very reactive to the arguments being put forth by the more committed advocates on both sides of the issue, Carvalho said, adding, The danger for Republicans is that when you look at independents, independents are moving more toward Democrats on this issue. When the debate starts overstepping what public opinion believes to be common sense, weve seen independents moving in Democrats corner.
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Who Led The Shift
Leading the way were Democrats and those under 45 years of age who now say theyre pro-life, the organization said. The dramatic shift occurred in the wake of several states efforts to legalize abortion up until birth, the Knights of Columbus added.
More from the organization:
Among Democrats, the gap between pro-life and pro-choice identifiers was cut in half from 55 percent to 27 percent. The number of Democrats now identifying as pro-life is 34 percent, up from 20 percent last month, while the number identifying as pro-choice fell from 75 percent to 61 percent. Younger Americans also moved dramatically, now dividing 47 percent pro-life to 48 percent pro-choice. One month ago, the gap was almost 40 percentage points with only 28 percent identifying as pro-life and 65 percent identifying as pro-choice.
The recent legal changes to late-term abortion and the debate which followed have not gone unnoticed by the general public, Barbara Carvalho, director of the Marist Poll, told the Knights of Columbus. In just one month, there has been a significant increase in the proportion of Americans who see themselves as pro-life and an equally notable decline in those who describe themselves as pro-choice.
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Gallup: Percentage Of Pro
A new Gallup survey out today finds the percentage of Americans who identify them selves as supporting legalized abortion has dropped to a record low.
The 41% of Americans who now identify themselves as pro-choice is down from 47% last July and is one percentage point below the previous record low in Gallup trends, recorded in May 2009, the polling firm noted. On the other hand, 51 percent of Americans call themselves pro-life, one percentage point away from the record high.
The percentage of Americans identifying themselves as pro-life has trended higher since 1995, when the partial-birth abortion debate began in earnest and ultrasound technology made it so pictures of unborn children were the first baby pictures most parents saw. Gallup has found the pro-life position significantly ahead on two occasions, once in May 2009 and again today and the number of pro-abortion Americans has steadily dropped.
Gallup says the decline in Americans self-identification as pro-choice is seen across the three U.S. political groups with Republicans increasingly becoming pro-life.
Since 2001, the majority of Republicans have consistently taken the pro-life position, but by a gradually increasing margin over pro-choice. That gap expanded further this year, with the percentage of Republicans identifying as pro-life increasing to 72% from 68% last May, and those identifying as pro-choice dropping to 22% from 28%, Gallup noted.
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How The Gop Abandoned Pro
Last week, the Womens Health Protection Act, which would have codified abortion rights, died in in the Senate by a vote of 51 to 49. All 210 House Republicans and all 50 Senate Republicans voted against the legislation. This surprised no one, but its actually odd in several ways. When Roe v. Wade came down in the early 1970s, a majority of the GOP was pro-choice. It took decades for Republican officials to become almost monolithically opposed to abortion rights. But pro-choice Republican voters didnt entirely cease to exist, and this could become a problem for the party if, as expected, the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the right to abortion at the end of this term.
Though polling on the issue is notoriously slippery, our best guess is that a little over a third of Republicans disagree with their party on whether to outlaw abortion . These Americans have virtually no representation in Congress with the limited exceptions of Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Though both GOP senators support some abortion rights, they still opposed the WHPA and are against dropping the filibuster to preserve abortion rights.
Partisan polarization on abortion has been slow but steady, as Aaron Blake of the Washington Post recently observed:
Democrats Rally To ‘pro
The increase in pro-choice identification over the past year is mainly driven by Democrats 88%, up from 70% last year, consider themselves pro-choice.
The poll also shows significant increases in pro-choice identification among Democratic-leaning groups, including younger adults and women. Pro-choice identification increased by nine percentage points to 61% among women, 12 points to 67% among adults aged 18 to 34 and nine points to 58% among adults aged 35 to 54. The percentage “pro-choice” did not change significantly among Republicans, independents, men or older Americans.
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Both Sides Still Tried To Appeal To The Center For A While
Even after the parties began to move apart on the issue, activists on both sides tried to appeal to the center, as Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University who studies the history of the abortion debate, wrote recently at the Washington Post. In the 1990s and early 2000s, for instance, many abortion opponents devoted their energy to supporting incremental restrictions, like a ban on dilation and extraction, a technique for abortions later in pregnancy that opponents called partial-birth abortion. The restriction, which was eventually passed at the federal level in 2003, is far less sweeping than the heartbeat bills many Republican lawmakers favor today, which would ban abortions as early as six weeks.
Democrats, meanwhile, could be somewhat equivocal on abortion during this time period, with Bill Clinton during his 1992 campaign famously saying that abortions should be safe, legal, and rare. Hillary Clinton used the same language in her 2008 presidential campaign.
But more recently, both sides of the abortion debate have come to seek broader change. Among abortion-rights supporters, theres been an increasing awareness of reproductive justice.The term, coined in 1994, describes an approach focused not just on the legal right to an abortion, but on safe, affordable access to a range of reproductive health care, as well as the ability to parent children safely.
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Mellman: The Rise Of The Pro
Cold War babies like me were taught to abhor communism as children.
My earliest memory of such instruction came from a teacher who raged against what she claimed was communisms demand that people inform on family, friends and neighbors, turning them over to the secret police for actions or views critical of the regime.
I shudder to think what those now deceased teachers would say about Republicans in Texas, and elsewhere, encouraging citizens to intervene in their neighbors most intimate decisions by suing them for giving a friend a ride to an abortion clinic or being a woman who received one.
Joe BidenSocial media making political polarization worse: reportBiden and UKs Johnson to meet for talks this month: reportToyota, Honda knock union-made EV incentive in Dems spending packageMORE called it vigilantism. In my youth, it wouldve seemed a form of creeping totalitarianism.
This disastrous policy, designed to outlaw abortion while enabling recent Republican Supreme Court justices to parry well-founded accusations of perjury in their confirmation hearings, is a dagger pointed at the political heart of the GOP.
Though it was never counted as one of the most important problems facing the country , abortion played a lead role as culture developed into our central line of political cleavage.
In recent years, two facts emerged clearly: First, the vast majority of Americans are what the political class would call pro-choice .
Public opinion is clear.
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Majority Of Voters Say Overturning Roe Wont Impact The Likelihood Of Them Voting In Midterm Elections But 1 In 5 Of Voters And 1 In 4 Younger Women Voters Say It Will Motivate Them More And They Will Only Vote For A Pro
Majorities Oppose State Laws Criminalizing Abortion, Even Those Living In States Where Abortion Will Become Illegal If Roe Is Overturned
Misconceptions Around Abortions Persist With Most Women of Reproductive Age Unaware Of Medication Abortion And Many Confusing It With Emergency Contraception
More than a third of voters say that they would be more motivated to vote in Novembers Midterm Election if the Supreme Court overturns the Roe v. Wade decision establishing a constitutional right to an abortion, and this group is largely pro-choice and leans Democratic, finds a new KFF Health Tracking Poll focused on abortion issues.
Fielded after news broke about a leaked draft opinion in the pending Dobbs v. Jackson case that would overturn Roe, the findings suggest that a decision to overturn Roe could narrow a midterm voter enthusiasm gap, projected to favor the Republican party over the Democratic party. However, a majority of voters say a ruling overturning Roe would not influence their motivation to vote in the midterms.
One in five of all voters say both that such a decision would make them more motivated to vote and that they would only vote for a candidate who wants to protect access to abortion. This group includes nearly four in ten Democratic voters , Democratic women voters , and a quarter of women voters under age 50 .
Majorities Oppose States Criminalizing Abortion, Even in States with Existing Trigger Laws or Pre-Roe Abortion Bans
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Where False Beliefs On Abortion Come From
It’s not totally clear why our perceptions of abortion skew toward high levels of danger and risk. It could relate to the fact that abortion rarely gets discussed, so it seems shadowy and unknown. Or an earlier era of unsafe and unregulated abortion may stick in our minds, from the 1950s and ’60s and earlier.
“It might be a holdover from talking about illegal abortions, which are unsafe,” says NYU sociologist Sarah Cowan, who studies how women talk about abortion.
Television shows and movies might also play a role, where plot lines have portrayed abortion as a dangerous medical procedure. One 2014 analysis found that 9.3 percent of abortion patients on TV and in movies ultimately die from complications of the procedure.
“When abortion is shown on television, it’s often a life-threatening procedure or a very extreme case,” says Julia Reticker-Flynn, who runs the 1 in 3 Campaign, which encourages women to share their abortion stories. “Even when politicians talk about it, there’s an overemphasis on the dangers.”
Women are also reticent to share their abortion stories. Cowan at NYU has found that more people say they’ve had someone tell them about a miscarriage than an abortion, even though abortion happens more often. This suggests that abortion gets kept secret, allowing misperceptions to thrive.
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Republican Majority For Choice
The Republican Majority for Choice was a Republican organization in the United States dedicated to preserving legal access to abortion. The group also supported federal funding for all kinds of stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research.
RMC had a political action committee and supported Republicans across the country who favored abortion rights. The group closed operations in 2018.
The name was chosen to emphasize information based on polling that consistently shows that a majority of Republicans support legal access to abortion in at least some circumstances. In 2009, Gallup reported that 66% of Republicans agreed that abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances. A Gallup poll in 2011 found that 27% of Republicans identified themselves as “pro-choice”. However, 42% of Republicans support legal abortion during the first trimester. In 2017, Gallup released polling information showing that 36% of Republicans identified as “pro-choice” and 70% agreed that abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances.
In 2018, an NBC/Wall St Journal poll found that 52% of Republicans supported the Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling and did not want said ruling to be overturned.
Most Still Oppose Abortion In Second And Third Trimesters
A defining feature of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was its reference to pregnancy trimesters in establishing when states can or cannot limit a woman’s right to an abortion. Roe effectively said the state could not limit abortions in the first and second trimesters but had an interest in protecting the fetus after the point of viability, at about the start of the third trimester.
Americans’ views have only partially aligned with this distinction over the years, broadly agreeing that abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy and mostly agreeing it should be illegal in the last three months. However, unlike the court’s hands-off approach in the second trimester, relatively few Americans have thought it should generally be legal at that stage.
While that general pattern persists in the latest poll, the percentages saying abortion should be legal increased for each trimester, rising seven to eight points for each.
Currently, support for legal abortion in the first trimester runs more than 2-to-1 in favor . A majority of Americans are generally against abortion in the second three months, while 36% think it should be legal. Americans are most unified in their views on the third trimester, with 71% saying abortion should not be legal at this stage and 20% saying it should be.
Previous Gallup polling found Americans opposed to laws banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected , such as those passed in a number of states.
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Planned Parenthood Case Summary
to defund Planned Parenthood and multiple states passing restrictive laws, reproductive rightsand abortion in particularcontinue to be increasingly under attack in the United States. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that a womans choice whether to have an abortion is protected by her right to privacy and that any restrictions on that right must be under strict scrutiny. This means that by law, women have the right to get abortions without facing unnecessary restrictions. According
