If the recent wins in Ohio and Virginia weren’t enough evidence in addition to data from most elections since Roe‘s overturning that the Dobbs ruling has fired up the cross-party coalition supporting abortion access, there’s more.
A new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll out today found that about 55 percent of those surveyed believe that women should have access to legal abortion for any reason, which, in the WSJ’s words is “one of the highest levels on record since nonpartisan researchers began tracking it in the 1970s.”
Support for access to the procedure was at an all time high among Democrats and Independents surveyed, with 77 percent of Democratic voters backing abortion for any reason. Back in 2016, only 52 percent of Democrats surveyed by the same group indicated as much. Additionally about one-third of Republicans back access to abortion for women who need it for any reason.
Some of the Republicans who said they’re normally opposed to abortion in most cases cited their belief that the government shouldn’t be interfering in medical decisions as rationale for recent shifts. The extreme, no-exception bans we’ve seen popping up in red states around the U.S. since the Dobbs ruling were also a turn-off for some Republicans polled.
Per the WSJ:
Many voters have nuanced views, including backing restrictions later in pregnancy and exceptions for difficult circumstances, that they say aren’t well captured by current legislative proposals. Nearly nine in 10 poll respondents support abortion access in the event of rape or incest, or when a woman’s health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy.
The poll was run by NORC at the University of Chicago. It surveyed 1,163 people who are registered voters from Oct. 19-24. The WSJ breaks down the results more in-depth here.
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