Because the survey could not take every possible scenario into account, several questions offered respondents the option to say “it depends” rather than taking a more firm or clear position on whether abortion should be legal or illegal in particular situations. Nonetheless, the new survey seeks to explore some dimensions of the debate, beginning with the public’s views on whether abortion should broadly be legal or illegal, and then moving on to probe views on specific circumstances.
There are a vast number of ways to frame questions about the legality (or morality) of abortion when combining multiple possible factors, such as the stage of the pregnancy, the circumstances of the pregnant person, the health of the fetus, and many other possible complications or scenarios. Given the nuances of many people’s opinions on the topic, measuring views on abortion is not easy. The new survey did not ask specifically about Roe, but previous Center studies have found that most Americans say the court should not completely overturn that decision. In anticipation of the court’s decision, several states already have made moves in the direction of stricter abortion regulations, while others have moved to protect abortion access. And after this survey was completed, a leaked draft of the majority opinion in Dobbs published by Politico this week suggested that the court’s upcoming decision would indeed completely overturn Roe and Casey. Casey, two landmark decisions that prevented states from significantly restricting abortion before a fetus is considered viable outside the womb. Following the initial arguments, many observers anticipated that the high court could partially or completely overturn Roe v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization before the end of its current term. Supreme Court is expected to announce a decision about abortion in Dobbs v. The Center undertook this survey because the U.S.
Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses, which gives nearly all U.S. For this analysis, we surveyed 10,441 U.S. Pew Research Center conducted this study to examine the public’s attitudes about abortion in the United States.