While the US Constitutional Court’s overturning of the decision protecting the federal right to abortion for nearly half a century is supported by some segments, it is estimated that the decision contradicts the views of the majority in the country.
The opinion poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos on May 16-23 across the USA revealed the views of supporters of both parties on the issue.
According to the poll, 71 percent of Americans, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, said that the decision to terminate a pregnancy should be left to women and their doctors, rather than government regulation.
However, this support is not absolute. While 26 percent of the respondents said that abortion should be legal in all cases, 10 percent argued that it should be illegal in all cases.
More than half of the survey’s 4,409 respondents noted that abortion should be legal in some cases and illegal in others.
Republicans were more likely to support abortion restrictions than Democrats.
But while the vast majority of Republicans in Congress opposed the right to abortion, 36 percent of Republican respondents to the survey said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Similarly, 34 percent of Democrats noted that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. One-fifth of Democrats said it was “too easy” for women to have abortions.
The rate of those who advocated that the decision of abortion should be left to women and their doctors constituted three-quarters of the women surveyed, while the rate of men who advocated it was two-thirds.
Congress will be effective in midterm elections
The abortion right debate is expected to affect the midterm elections in November, which will determine which party will be the majority in the US Congress and 36 governors.
State legislatures are also in place, and elections can affect many state-level initiatives to restrict access to abortion.
While 34 percent of respondents said Democrats had better plans for abortion policies, 26 percent said they preferred the Republican approach. The remainder did not choose which of the two parties was better at abortion policies, or stated that they did not know which was better.
For the survey conducted by Reuters/Ipsos on May 16-23 across the USA, 2 thousand 36 Democrats, 1,637 Republicans and 530 independents were interviewed.
Abortion was not a partisan issue in the past
The issue has been one of the defining issues of US politics since the Supreme Court legalized abortion at the federal level in 1973, in the Roe v Wade decision. Democratic politicians advocate abortion rights, while Republicans are against these rights.
But in 1973 the line between the two views was not so clear. The number of Republican and Democrat voters who said abortion should be legal was nearly equal. It was possible to see Republican officials who defended the right to abortion and Democrats who opposed this right.
So what has changed over time? How did the parties polarize on this issue?
In the early 1970s, abortion was legal in four states, while 14 states had made the procedure legal in some cases.
While the Catholic Church opposed abortion, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Evangelical denomination, said that abortion was permissible in most circumstances.
Neither side saw abortion as a decisive issue.
Republicans like First Lady Betty Ford said the Roe decision was a “great decision”, while some Democrats, like the newly elected Senator Joe Biden at the time, said the Supreme Court’s decision “went too far”.
Voters did not see the issue as a partisan issue either. The General Society Survey, in its 1977 study, found that 39 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of Democrats advocated that abortion should be legal in any way.
Emphasis on “Traditional values under threat”
In the following years, conservative activists such as Phyllis Schlafly began to focus on the discourse that the issue threatened traditional values and Evangelical churches. At the time, Evangelical churches were beginning to take a new interest in politics after a number of courts restricted public prayer.
These groups began to portray abortion as a threat to family structure, with gay rights, divorce rates, and the increasing number of women working outside the home.
According to Mary Ziegler, a legal historian at the University of California-Davis, abortion has raised concerns about the liberalization of society among clergy and members of the congregation.
Ziegler says that for many Evangelists, the issue is seen as about family, women and gender.
In 1980 the Southern Baptist Convention changed its previous stance and passed a resolution opposing the right to abortion.
The election victory of Republican President Ronald Reagan that same year gave those who opposed the right to abortion an important ally in the White House. During this period, women’s rights activists began to gain influence within the Democratic Party and encouraged leaders to advocate for abortion rights.
However, support for the Roe law was still not a partisan issue at the time.
In a vote in the Senate in 1983, 34 Republicans and 15 Democrats voted on a proposed constitutional amendment that would overturn the Roe decision. 19 Republicans and 31 Democrats voted against it.
Although President Joe Biden supported the amendment a year ago, he was among the names who said “no” to the constitutional amendment proposal in the 1983 vote.
In the ensuing years, the difference between the two sides began to become clearer as politicians realized that it was necessary to enlist the support of activists who were starting to become more influential in their parties.
Republican George HW Bush, who previously advocated but later opposed abortion rights, became president in 1988. In 1992, Democrat Bill Clinton, who was against abortion rights in the past but later began to advocate for abortion rights, ousted Bush from his seat.
Since 1989, abortion rights groups have donated $32 million to Democrats and $3 million to Republican candidates who support keeping abortion legal, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks the flow of money in politics. Anti-abortion groups donated $14 million to Republicans and just $372k to Democrats during this time.
Voters, on the other hand, lagged behind in determining their side. According to the General Public Survey, in 1991, 45 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Republicans said they supported abortion for any reason.
With the entry of the 2000s, separations increased
Partisan differences grew in later years as the subject became a staple of television offensive commercials, fundraisers, and mass rallies by interest groups.
In the early 2000s, only 31 percent of Republicans supported on-demand abortion, while Democrats’ support for the right to abortion remained stable at 45 percent, according to the General Public Survey.
Other polls showed that while most Americans advocated some restrictions on abortion, they were against an all-out ban.
Around the same time, Democrats began to be more explicit in their support for abortion rights.
According to the General Society Survey, the proportion of Democratic voters who support the right to unlimited abortion increased from 56 percent in 2016 to 71 percent last year. Republican support remained around 34 percent.
For much of his political career, Biden has advocated a ban on federal funding of most abortions under Medicaid, health insurance for the poor. He changed this position while running for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidacy in 2020.
In the current Congress, only one Democrat each in the House of Representatives and the Senate voted against the bill that would make abortion legal under all circumstances across the country. The bill failed to pass the Senate, but Democrats said they plan to make the issue one of the key items in the November 2022 midterm elections.