Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Oppose Making Abortion Less Accessible

A 56%-majority of Americans opposes making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, while 35% favor this. Opinions about abortion have changed relatively little over the past several years. The level of support for making it harder to get an abortion has varied from 30% to 41% over the past 20 years, but there is little indication of a trend in either direction. There is a sizable partisan gap on this question as well, with 53% of Republicans favoring making it harder to get an abortion, while just 24% of Democrats agree. A very large intra-party gap is also seen within the ranks of Republicans, with fully 63% of conservative Republicans wanting to make abortions harder to get, compared with only 37% of moderate and liberal Republicans. Moderate and conservative Democrats (30% favor) differ from liberal Democrats (15% favor) on this question as well, but the gap is not as large as among Republicans. There are no significant gender or age differences on this question. Read More