Where Americans Stand On Abortion, In 5 Charts

Late Monday, we learned that the Supreme Court may be ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established the constitutional right to abortion.

Abortion is a thorny issue in American life. It’s not something people like to talk about, and it’s not something people know that much about. Because of that, it’s hard to understand how Americans really think about abortion and how many Americans would react if Roe were overturned. 

There is one point, though, in this debate that is clear: The majority of Americans don’t want to overturn Roe. How polls ask about support varies, but the vast majority of respondents — somewhere between 85 and 90 percent, according to most polls — think abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances.

We only have one poll taken after the Supreme Court draft opinion was leaked, but a May 3 Morning Consult/Politico poll also found that most don’t want to overturn Roe — albeit a slim majority, just 50 percent of registered voters. (This represented a small uptick in support from the last time Morning Consult asked the question in December, when 45 percent of registered voters supported upholding Roe.) Other polls taken within the last year have found identical or higher levels of support: 50 percent in a Marquette Law School poll, 62 percent in a Monmouth University poll and 69 percent in a CNN/SSRS one.

Americans’ feelings about abortion vary, though. Support for abortion in very Republican-leaning states, especially in the South, is low. Polls have found that support for abortion can change depending on the situation, too. For instance, there’s far more support for legal abortions in the cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

One of the most significant ways in which support for abortion varies depends on when in the pregnancy the abortion is perfomed. Polls have found that a large majority of Americans support abortion in the first trimester, but that support tends to drop in the second trimester.

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