Majority of Americans Continue to Say Abortion Should Be Legal in All or Most Cases
In recent years, the public has become more likely to say obtaining an abortion in their area would be difficult.
Abortion
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Cultural Issues and the 2024 Election
Voters who support Biden and Trump have starkly different opinions on many issues, and these two groups are divided internally as well.
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Americans overwhelmingly say access to IVF is a good thing
Seven-in-ten Americans say in vitro fertilization access is a good thing. Just 8% say it is a bad thing, and 22% are unsure.
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Broad Public Support for Legal Abortion Persists 2 Years After Dobbs
Views are split by political party, but support for legal abortion has risen modestly in both groups since before the 2022 Dobbs decision.
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What the data says about abortion in the U.S.
The U.S. abortion rate has generally declined since the 1980s, but there have been slight upticks in the late 2010s and early 2020s.
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Nearly a Year After Roe’s Demise, Americans’ Views of Abortion Access Increasingly Vary by Where They Live
In states where abortion is prohibited, the share of people who say access to abortion should be easier has increased since August 2019. A majority of residents in those states say it would be difficult to get an abortion in the area where they live today, up 21 points from four years ago.
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By more than two-to-one, Americans say medication abortion should be legal in their state
A majority of Americans say medication abortion should be legal, but there is a stark divide by age, religion and party affiliation.
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Most Latinos Say Democrats Care About Them and Work Hard for Their Vote, Far Fewer Say So of GOP
Abortion has risen as an election issue for Latinos, with a majority saying it should be legal in all or most cases. Meanwhile, 80% say the economy is a very important issue when deciding who to vote for in the upcoming congressional midterm elections, a greater share than any other issue.
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Positive Views of Supreme Court Decline Sharply Following Abortion Ruling
Americans’ ratings of the Supreme Court are now as negative as – and more politically polarized than – at any point in more than three decades of polling. And nearly two-thirds of Democrats (64%) now say the Supreme Court has too much power, almost three times the share who said this in August 2020 (23%).
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Abortion Rises in Importance as a Voting Issue, Driven by Democrats
While the economy remains the dominant issue in this fall’s midterm elections, the issue of abortion has increased markedly in importance. More voters continue to view their midterm vote as an expression of opposition to Joe Biden than support for him. But across both parties, more voters now say Biden is not much of a factor in their vote.
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India’s Sex Ratio at Birth Begins To Normalize
India’s artificially wide ratio of baby boys to baby girls – which arose in the 1970s from the use of prenatal diagnostic technology to facilitate sex-selective abortions – now appears to be narrowing. Son bias has declined sharply among Sikhs, while Christians continue to have a natural balance of sons and daughters.
