Image by Gayatri Malhotra.
The abortion debate continues to rage and women still need to fight for the right to decide whether or not we can or should abort.
Pew Research Center has conducted no shortage of surveys about abortion over the years, providing a window into Americans’ views on the subject.
In a Center survey conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion, 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Another survey conducted a few months before the decision showed that relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the issue.
The last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2021. It found there were 625,978 abortions in the District of Columbia and the 46 states with available data that year, up from 597,355 in those states and D.C. in 2020.
In 2020, there were 1,603 facilities in the U.S. that provided abortions, according to Guttmacher. This included 807 clinics, 530 hospitals and 266 physicians’ offices.
While clinics make up half of the facilities that provide abortions, they are the sites where the vast majority (96%) of abortions are administered, either through procedures or the distribution of pills, according to Guttmacher’s 2020 data.
Monmouth University conducted a poll among Republicans in February and found that 12% believe it should be legal in all cases and 27% in most cases. However, 41% said they believe abortion should be illegal in most cases, while 14% said it should be illegal in all cases.
According to a March 7 poll conducted by health research organization KFF, 85% of Republican voters who want abortion to be illegal in all or most cases say they trust former President Trump more than President Biden on the issue of abortion. Half of Republican voters who want abortion to be legal in all or most cases also say they trust Trump more than Biden on this issue.
The KFF poll also showed that voters who say abortion is the most important issue to their vote are disproportionately younger, Democratic-leaning, and want abortion to be legal in all cases.
According to the authors, “there seems to be a new generation of abortion voters largely made up of those who want abortion to be legal in all cases. Voters who say abortion is the “most important issue” in their 2024 vote (12% of all voters) are disproportionately made up of Black voters, Democratic voters, women voters, and the youngest voting bloc – voters ages 18 to 29.”
In addition, according to KFF, “There is broad support, even among partisans, for protecting access to abortions for patients who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies and protecting patients’ right to travel to access abortions, but partisans disagree on other policy proposals such as whether there should be a federal right to abortion or a nationwide 16-week abortion ban. Two-thirds of the public, including majorities of Democrats (86%) and independents (67%), support a law guaranteeing a federal right to abortion. Yet, this is opposed by nearly six in ten Republicans (57%). In addition, while among the public overall about six in ten (58%) oppose a 16-week abortion ban, a majority of Republicans (63%) adults support this proposal, while most Democrats (75%) and independents (59%) oppose it.”
It is important to remember that those advocating for abortion rights are in essence advocating for human rights. These polls demonstrate what is important to so many of us: control over reproductive decisions is crucial for women’s social, economic, and political equality – a basic tenet of the Democratic party and its voters.
Separating church from state, personal values from religion, is essential to ensuring individual freedoms and rights that guarantee absolute equality for women. It is our body. It should be our choice.
