Three years after the Supreme Court opened the door to state abortion bans, most U.S. adults say abortion should be legal, views that look similar to before the landmark ruling.
Three years after the Supreme Court opened the door to state abortion bans, most U.S. adults continue to say abortion should be legal — views that look similar to before the landmark ruling.
The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll show that about two-thirds of U.S. adults think abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
About half believe abortion should be available in their state if someone does not want to be pregnant for any reason.
That level of support for abortion is down slightly from what an AP-NORC poll showed last year, when it seemed that support for legal abortion might be rising.Laws and opinions changed when Roe was overturned
The June 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door to state bans on abortion led to major policy changes.
Most states have either moved to protect abortion access or restrict it. Twelve are now enforcing bans on abortion at every stage of pregnancy, and four more do so after about six weeks’ gestation, which is often before women realize they’re pregnant.
In the aftermath of the ruling, AP-NORC polling suggested that support for legal abortion access might be increasing.
Last year, an AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that 7 in 10 U.S. adults said it should be available in all or most cases, up slightly from 65% in May 2022, just before the decision that overruled the constitutional right to abortion, and 57% in June 2021.
The new poll is closer to Americans’ views before the Supreme Court ruled. Now, 64% of adults support legal abortion in most or all cases. More than half the adults in states with the most stringent bans are in that group.
Similarly, about half now say abortion should be available in their state when someone doesn’t want to continue their pregnancy for any reason — about the same as in June 2021 but down from about 6 in 10 who said that in 2024.
