A new Gallup survey has found American support of legal abortion access has remained strong, and in some cases increased, since the US supreme court ruled to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade decision that previously protected federal abortion rights.
The results come even as tens of millions of American women have lost easy access to abortion across larges swathes of America over the past 12 months.
The study found a record-high 69% of Americans said abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy. The prior high of 67% was recorded last May after the supreme court’s draft was leaked.
At the same time, the survey showed 34% of Americans believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances, just one point off last year’s record-high of 35% and above the 27% average since 1975.
Some 52% of Americans say abortion is morally acceptable, matching last year’s all-time high. That is 10 percentage points above the historical average since 2001.
“We’ve seen the public react very strongly to the [abortion] decision since it was leaked and after it was made,” said Justin McCarthy, a spokesperson for Gallup. “It may have changed how Americans define what it means to be pro-choice and pro-life.”
Although most Americans still oppose a later-term abortion, 37% say it should be legal in the second trimester and 22% in the final trimester. Gallup said these figures are the highest since 1996.
Since the US supreme court overturned federal abortion rights, a number of Republican-controlled state legislatures have brought in abortion bans that have varied in their extremity.
Abortion has also become a national political issue in the US as some Republicans have sought to distance themselves from the extreme bans that some in their party advocate, including an effort to bring in a federal ban on the right to abortion.
Leading Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has sought to distance himself from banning abortion rights outright – despite being responsible for the conservative makeup of the supreme court that overturned Roe – while others, such as former vice-president Mike Pence and rightwing Florida governor Ron DeSantis, have taken a more hardline stance.
Democrats, meanwhile, have frequently made defending abortion rights central to their election strategies.
Gallup has been surveying attitudes towards abortion since 1975. Since then, most people surveyed believed abortion should be legal under some circumstances, rather than legal under any circumstance or completely illegal.
The percentage of Americans wanting abortion to be outright illegal regardless of the circumstance has fallen from 21% in 2019 to 13% in 2022 and 2023, according to Gallup.
Support has also increased for keeping the prescription abortion pill mifepristone available in the US, with more than six in 10 Americans in favor.
Overall, Americans have continued to shift their attitude towards abortion in favor of it.
Gallup said: “The basic contours of American public opinion on abortion remain as they’ve been for decades: the majority of US adults want abortion legal, with restrictions. Among the rest, more think abortion should be completely legal than completely illegal.”
