Republican-led abortion bans don't necessarily represent their voters' views

Some do. Some don't. On measuring abortion opinion and who is forcing strict policies

In the wake of a big week for abortion policy – a win for a pro-choice supreme court justice in Wisconsin followed by dueling decisions from federal judges regarding mifepristone, one of the two “abortion pills” – there has been lots of chatter online, and subsequent news articles, discussing how enacting strict abortion bans could be hurting Republicans. As with any topic, some of the analysis is very insightful. And some of it makes errors – the most common ones are misinterpreting polling data and conflating legislators’ moves with public opinion.

Let’s dispense with the latter one first. Legislators passing strict abortion bans does not mean the voters who elected that person support that specific policy, particularly in states that have all-Republican governments. This New York Times column from Michelle Goldberg conflates legislation and public opinion – the headline is quite accurate, but the subhead makes the claim that “their voters won’t let them pivot to moderation.” The evidence offered for the inability to pivot is legislation and party platforms, not public opinion numbers. The only public opinion evidence offered is that a majority of Republicans say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases (and notably missing is the fact that in that same PRRI data, only 14 percent of Republicans opt for the strictest “illegal in all cases” option). 

Most people are not single-issue voters: Only about a quarter of Americans say a candidate has to share their view on abortion to earn their vote.

Which brings us to the second issue: Measuring abortion views isn’t easily boiled down to a single number. There is a lot of nuance in views on abortion and policy around abortion, including a wide variety of circumstances under which it could be allowed or restricted, and different phases of pregnancy in which abortion could be available under various conditions. A thorough abortion policy poll asks people about a range of these policies and feeds into reporting that explores these nuances.

But for the sake of simplicity, we all want a single overview question to broadly describe the issue. The widely used broad abortion question typically asks respondents if they think abortion should be “legal in all cases,” “legal in most cases,” “illegal in most cases,” or “illegal in all cases.” Most of the time we talk about this in its combined two-category form: legal in most or all cases, and illegal in most or all cases. It’s a metric that gives a broad, general look at where people stand on the issue 

What it doesn’t do is provide insight into what specific policies people support or oppose –  the categories can easily mean different things to different people. The “all” cases categories seem pretty clear, although there could be some nuance – for example, someone who says abortion should be illegal in all cases might mean all unless the mother’s life is in danger. But they could also answer “illegal in most cases” with that view. Someone else could support a 6-week ban and say they think abortion should be illegal in most cases. Yet another person might provide that answer while supporting a later ban. 

And what does it mean to think abortion should be legal in most cases – is that all the way through pregnancy? A legal-in-most-cases person could support a 15-week ban, with the logic that they support it being legal up to a point. 

All of these situations exist in the data. What’s more, we have data on all of these specific policies from a variety of sources, so there’s no need to make assumptions based on murky categories. 

Where are Republicans on the specific policies? Mixed. Most do not support criminalizing having an abortion, although about half support criminalizing performing the abortion (see fig. 12 here), and nearly two-thirds oppose restricting interstate travel for abortions (see fig. 5 here). There is majority support for 6-week bans, and most support bans that only make exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. By far the most popular policy, though? A 15-week ban. Only one in five Republicans oppose it, compared to a third to half of Republicans opposing the more restrictive bans. It’s likely that a noisy minority of Republicans would say a 15-week ban doesn’t go far enough, but it’s a policy that would keep Republicans electable.    

In general, in the post-Roe era, questions on specific policies – including bans on abortion pills, another one which isn’t supported by a majority of Republicans, by the way – will be much more meaningful than the legal-illegal question. The legislation and the debate has moved into the nuances of when it can be legal and how, and less about legal status. Certainly some Republicans want absolutely no abortion – but it’s far from a majority, and it’s not measured by using the “illegal in most or all cases” combined category.

There’s nothing magical about a majority anyway. There are myriad examples on which a majority of Americans support a policy, but politicians are not hurt for inaction or taking the opposite action – including immigration, LGBTQ issues, and gun policy. One could argue abortion is a bigger issue than most, but even as large as it is, most people are not single-issue voters: Only about a quarter of Americans say a candidate has to share their view on abortion to earn their vote.

We see clearly in the data that most Americans are kind of in the middle on abortion policy. Their views often vary by the specific restrictions under consideration – but they don’t want it completely banned or completely unrestricted. Republicans are undoubtedly to the right of the mean, but the very strict legislation that Republican legislators are pushing in some states, and the decisions some judges are making, are not supported by most Republicans in the population. That should indeed freak out Republican leadership – but it’s not the voters that they need to get in line. It’s the elected officials pushing the extreme policies they need to rein in.