Majority of Americans Continue to Say Abortion Should Be Legal in All or Most Cases

 

Nearly four years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a majority of Americans continue to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Now, with a patchwork of differing state laws in effect, perceptions of abortion access vary by where people live.

A 60% majority of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. This share is down slightly from the last few years – when attention to the issue was heightened after the high court’s Dobbs decision.

About half (51%) say it would be easy to get an abortion in the area where they live, while slightly fewer (45%) say it would be difficult. In recent years, the public has become more likely to say obtaining an abortion in their area would be difficult.

Roughly a third (32%) say it should be easier to get an abortion where they live, 27% say it should be harder and 38% say it should be about what it is now.

Should abortion be legal or illegal?

Since 2024, there has been a slight decline in the share of Americans who say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Still, public support for legal abortion remains far higher than it was in the 1990s and early 2000s.

• Today, 60% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, down from 63% in 2024
• This share is roughly on par with views held in March 2022, a few months before the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision (61%).

Familiar partisan gap in views of abortion

The recent decline in support for legal abortion has come exclusively among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.

• Today, 36% of Republicans say it should be legal. In 2024, 41% held this view.
• Democrats’ views have been more stable over this period. Since 2022, at least 84% of Democrats have said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Still, the current partisan gap in views of abortion is far wider than a few decades ago. In 2007, there was a 24 percentage point gulf between the parties. That has widened to 48 points today.

Demographic differences

While majorities across most demographic and religious groups say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, there are exceptions. Roughly three-quarters of White evangelical Christians (74%) say it should be illegal in all or most cases. A majority of Republicans (63%) also hold this view.

There are also differences between men and women, younger and older adults, and people of different education levels and political ideologies.

For views on abortion by demographic group, read our fact sheet, “Public Opinion on Abortion.”

Perceptions that abortions are difficult to get are up modestly – and linked to geography

About half of Americans say it is easy to get an abortion in the area where they live (51%), while fewer say it is difficult (45%).

But in recent years, there has been a modest rise in perceptions that it is difficult to obtain an abortion.

In 2024, 39% of adults said it would be difficult for someone to get an abortion where they live. And in 2019 – before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – 32% said this.

Restrictiveness of state law on abortion is associated with perceptions of how easy or difficult the procedure is to obtain.

Roughly three-quarters of adults who live in states where abortion is prohibited say it is difficult (73%).

In states where abortion is restricted by gestational limits – ranging from 6 weeks to 20 weeks – views are slightly more mixed. But on balance, more people say it is difficult than easy (64% vs. 31%).

And in states where abortion is legal at or beyond the framework previously set by Roe v. Wade – roughly 24 weeks – about two-thirds (68%) say abortion is easy to obtain in the area where they live.

These patterns hold among both Republicans and Democrats.

Other key findings

Medication abortion

By about two-to-one, more U.S. adults say medication abortion should be legal (55%) than illegal (26%). However, the share saying medication abortion should be illegal has risen since 2024.

Considerations around abortion

About half of adults (52%) say that the statement, “The decision to have an abortion should belong solely to the pregnant woman” describes their views extremely or very well. And roughly four-in-ten (39%) say their views are best described by the statement, “Human life begins at conception, so an embryo is a person with rights.”

Notably, a third of Americans say both statements describe their views at least somewhat well.

Views by gender

In a shift from past surveys, there is now a modest gender gap in attitudes about abortion among Republicans. Still, partisanship continues to be a much bigger factor in these views than gender.

More than half of Americans (55%) say medication abortion should be legal in their state, while a much smaller share (26%) say it should be illegal. About two-in-ten (18%) say they are not sure.

Wide partisan gap on medication abortion

Democrats and Democratic leaning independents overwhelmingly say medication abortion should be legal in their state (76%). Only 10% say medication abortion should be illegal, and 14% are not sure.

By comparison, Republicans and Republican leaners are more divided: About a third (35%) say medication abortion should be legal in their state, while 43% say it should be illegal. About two-in-ten (21%) are not sure.

This analysis is part of a larger report about U.S. attitudes on abortion, from a survey of 8,512 adults conducted Jan. 20-26. For more on abortion attitudes, read the main report.

Trends in public opinion of medication abortion

Since 2023, just over half of U.S. adults overall have expressed support for legal medication abortion. But the share who say it should be illegal has grown modestly, and the share who say they are not sure is now down somewhat, from 25% in 2024 to 18% in 2026.

This change is largely driven by a shift in attitudes among Republicans.

Among Republicans

The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who say medication abortion should be legal has held relatively steady since we first started asking about this in 2023. But over this period, the share who say it should be illegal has increased (to 43% today, up from 32% in 2024 and 36% in 2023) as fewer now say they are not sure.

Among Democrats

As in the past, Democrats and Democratic leaners overwhelmingly say medication abortion should be legal. Over the last few years, there has been a small downtick in the share who say they are not sure. (The shares saying both legal and illegal have ticked up slightly as a result.)

Though partisanship remains a far bigger factor than gender in U.S. abortion attitudes, the opinions of men and women have diverged somewhat in recent years – particularly on the question of legality.

• Today, nearly two-thirds of women (64%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 34% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.
• By contrast, 55% of men say abortion should be legal, and 44% say it should be illegal.

The 9-point gender gap in the shares expressing support for legal abortion is as wide as we’ve seen in the last two decades. Over much of that time, there were no significant gender differences on this question.

This largely reflects the emergence of a gap between Republican and Republican-leaning men and women.

Among Republicans

Majorities of Republican men and women continue to say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, but those majorities differ in size: Two-thirds of Republican men say this, compared with 58% of Republican women.

Among Democrats

By contrast, similar overwhelming majorities of both women (85%) and men (83%) who identify as Democrats or Democratic leaners say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.