WASHINGTON (AP) — With Roe v. Wade facing its strongest threat in decades, a new poll finds Democrats increasingly view protecting abortion rights as a high priority for the government.
Thirteen percent of Democrats mentioned abortion or reproductive rights as one of the issues they want the federal government to address in 2022, according to a December poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s up from less than 1% of Democrats who named it as a priority for 2021 and 3% who listed it in 2020.
Some other issues like the economy, COVID-19, health care and gun control ranked as higher priorities for Democrats in the poll, which allowed respondents to name up to five top issues. But the exponential rise in the percentage citing reproductive rights as a key concern suggests the issue is resonating with Democrats as the Supreme Court considers cases that could lead to dramatic restrictions on abortion access.
“The public have lots of things that they want to see government addressing,” said Jennifer Benz, deputy director of The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. “You ask this kind of question in a time of economic turmoil and in the time of a pandemic and all of these other things going on, we might not expect abortion to rise to the top.”
With a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, Republicans see this as their best chance in years to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion throughout the United States. In December, the Supreme Court left in place a Texas law that bans most abortions in the state and signaled during arguments that they would uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That decision will be made public in June.
Keep scrolling to see where the Supreme Court’s nine justices stand on abortion rights
Calling the abortion polling numbers “stark,” Benz noted that conventional wisdom holds that abortion is a motivating issue for Republicans and not for Democrats. Research from the 1980s and 1990s, Benz said, “regularly found that opponents of abortion had greater strength of attitudes and considered the issue important to them personally more than pro-choice people.”
That may be changing. Sam Lau, senior director for advocacy media at the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, believes more Americans are recognizing this moment as a crisis for abortion access.
“I think what we have seen is absolutely an increase in awareness, an increase in urgency, an increase in the need to fight back,” he said. “But I still actually think that huge swaths of this population still don’t quite believe that the access to abortion and the 50-year precedent that is Roe v. Wade is really hanging in the balance.”
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File
FILE - Stephen Parlato of Boulder, Colo., holds a sign that reads "Hands Off Roe!!!" as abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion protesters demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, on Dec. 1, 2021, in Washington.
The court’s 1973 decision, reaffirmed in the 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, allows states to regulate but not ban abortion up to the point of fetal viability, at roughly 24 weeks. If Roe and Casey are overturned in June, abortion would soon become illegal or severely restricted in roughly half the states, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.
That’s just months ahead of midterm elections that are expected to be challenging for Democrats.
Lau thinks people are starting to recognize they “simply cannot rely on the courts to protect our rights and our access to essential health care.”
“We are currently pushing for elected officials who are champions of sexual and reproductive health care to be bold and to go on offense and to pass proactive legislation to protect access to abortion,” Lau said. “I think voters are going to go to the polls and want to vote for candidates who they can trust to protect their health care and their reproductive freedom.”
Polling shows relatively few Americans want to see Roe overturned. In 2020, AP VoteCast, a survey of the electorate, showed 69% of voters in the presidential election said the Supreme Court should leave the Roe v. Wade decision as is; just 29% said the court should overturn the decision. In general, AP-NORC polling shows a majority of the public favors abortion being legal in most or all cases.
Still, Americans have nuanced attitudes on the issue, and many don’t think that abortion should be possible after the first trimester or that women should be able to obtain a legal abortion for any reason.
For 41-year-old Rachelle Dunn, who knew girls in high school and women in college and her adult life who have needed abortions, it’s “just health care.”
“It’s something that women I have known through my life have needed for different reasons,” said Dunn, of Tarentum, Pennsylvania. “The government needs to step in because all of these laws are being written and passed, but none of them are for medical reasons.”
She’s concerned about a domino effect from these Supreme Court cases, adding that she worries about how they will affect her two daughters’ futures, as well as her son’s.
“It just seems like, if it’s been affirmed, repeatedly, why are we still doing this?” Dunn said.
The AP-NORC poll of 1,089 adults was conducted Dec. 2-7 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
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AP file
WASHINGTON (AP) — Abortion already is dominating the Supreme Court’s new term, months before the justices will decide whether to reverse decisions reaching back nearly 50 years. Not only is there Mississippi's call to overrule Roe v. Wade, but the court also soon will be asked again to weigh in on the Texas law banning abortion at roughly six weeks.
The justices won't be writing on a blank slate as they consider the future of abortion rights in the U.S. They have had a lot to say about abortion over the years — in opinions, votes, Senate confirmation testimony and elsewhere. Just one, Clarence Thomas, has openly called for overruling Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that established and reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Here is a sampling of their comments:
AP file
WASHINGTON (AP) — Abortion already is dominating the Supreme Court’s new term, months before the justices will decide whether to reverse decisions reaching back nearly 50 years. Not only is there Mississippi's call to overrule Roe v. Wade, but the court also soon will be asked again to weigh in on the Texas law banning abortion at roughly six weeks.
The justices won't be writing on a blank slate as they consider the future of abortion rights in the U.S. They have had a lot to say about abortion over the years — in opinions, votes, Senate confirmation testimony and elsewhere. Just one, Clarence Thomas, has openly called for overruling Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that established and reaffirmed a woman’s right to an abortion. Here is a sampling of their comments:
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Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Chief Justice John Roberts voted to uphold restrictions in two major abortion cases, in the majority in 2007 to uphold a ban on a method of abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion" and in dissent in 2016 when the court struck down Texas restrictions on abortion clinics in a case called Whole Woman's Health. But when a virtually identical law from Louisiana came before the court in 2020, Roberts voted against it and wrote the opinion controlling the outcome of the case and striking down the Louisiana law. The chief justice said he continues to believe that the 2016 case "was wrongly decided" but that the question was "whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case."
Roberts' views on when to break with court precedent could determine how far he is willing to go in the Mississippi case. At his 2005 confirmation hearing, he said overturning precedent "is a jolt to the legal system," which depends in part on stability and evenhandedness. Thinking that an earlier case was wrongly decided is not enough, he said. Overturning a case requires looking "at these other factors, like settled expectations, like the legitimacy of the Court, like whether a particular precedent is workable or not, whether a precedent has been eroded by subsequent developments," Roberts said then.
In the same hearing, Roberts was asked to explain his presence on a legal brief filed by the George H.W. Bush administration that said Roe's conclusion that there is a right to abortion has "no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.'' Roberts responded that the brief reflected the administration's views.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Chief Justice John Roberts voted to uphold restrictions in two major abortion cases, in the majority in 2007 to uphold a ban on a method of abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion" and in dissent in 2016 when the court struck down Texas restrictions on abortion clinics in a case called Whole Woman's Health. But when a virtually identical law from Louisiana came before the court in 2020, Roberts voted against it and wrote the opinion controlling the outcome of the case and striking down the Louisiana law. The chief justice said he continues to believe that the 2016 case "was wrongly decided" but that the question was "whether to adhere to it in deciding the present case."
Roberts' views on when to break with court precedent could determine how far he is willing to go in the Mississippi case. At his 2005 confirmation hearing, he said overturning precedent "is a jolt to the legal system," which depends in part on stability and evenhandedness. Thinking that an earlier case was wrongly decided is not enough, he said. Overturning a case requires looking "at these other factors, like settled expectations, like the legitimacy of the Court, like whether a particular precedent is workable or not, whether a precedent has been eroded by subsequent developments," Roberts said then.
In the same hearing, Roberts was asked to explain his presence on a legal brief filed by the George H.W. Bush administration that said Roe's conclusion that there is a right to abortion has "no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.'' Roberts responded that the brief reflected the administration's views.
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Associate Justice Clarence Thomas voted to overturn Roe in 1992, in his first term on the court, when he was a dissenter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He has repeatedly called for Roe and Casey to be overturned since.
In 2000, he wrote in dissent when the court struck down Nebraska's ban on "partial-birth abortion." Recounting the court's decision in Roe, he wrote, "In 1973, this Court struck down an Act of the Texas Legislature that had been in effect since 1857, thereby rendering unconstitutional abortion statutes in dozens of States. As some of my colleagues on the Court, past and present, ably demonstrated, that decision was grievously wrong. Abortion is a unique act, in which a woman's exercise of control over her own body ends, depending on one's view, human life or potential human life. Nothing in our Federal Constitution deprives the people of this country of the right to determine whether the consequences of abortion to the fetus and to society outweigh the burden of an unwanted pregnancy on the mother. Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the Constitution dictates that a State must do so."
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Associate Justice Clarence Thomas voted to overturn Roe in 1992, in his first term on the court, when he was a dissenter in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He has repeatedly called for Roe and Casey to be overturned since.
In 2000, he wrote in dissent when the court struck down Nebraska's ban on "partial-birth abortion." Recounting the court's decision in Roe, he wrote, "In 1973, this Court struck down an Act of the Texas Legislature that had been in effect since 1857, thereby rendering unconstitutional abortion statutes in dozens of States. As some of my colleagues on the Court, past and present, ably demonstrated, that decision was grievously wrong. Abortion is a unique act, in which a woman's exercise of control over her own body ends, depending on one's view, human life or potential human life. Nothing in our Federal Constitution deprives the people of this country of the right to determine whether the consequences of abortion to the fetus and to society outweigh the burden of an unwanted pregnancy on the mother. Although a State may permit abortion, nothing in the Constitution dictates that a State must do so."
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Associate Justice Stephen Breyer has been the lead author of two court majorities in defense of abortion rights, in 2000 and 2016. He has never voted to sustain an abortion restriction, but he has acknowledged the controversy over abortion.
Millions of Americans believe "that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child," while millions of others "fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity," he wrote in the Nebraska case 21 years ago, calling those views "virtually irreconcilable." Still, Breyer wrote, because the Constitution guarantees "fundamental individual liberty" and has to govern even when there are strong divisions in the country, "this Court, in the course of a generation, has determined and then redetermined that the Constitution offers basic protection to the woman's right to choose."
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File
Associate Justice Stephen Breyer has been the lead author of two court majorities in defense of abortion rights, in 2000 and 2016. He has never voted to sustain an abortion restriction, but he has acknowledged the controversy over abortion.
Millions of Americans believe "that an abortion is akin to causing the death of an innocent child," while millions of others "fear that a law that forbids abortion would condemn many American women to lives that lack dignity," he wrote in the Nebraska case 21 years ago, calling those views "virtually irreconcilable." Still, Breyer wrote, because the Constitution guarantees "fundamental individual liberty" and has to govern even when there are strong divisions in the country, "this Court, in the course of a generation, has determined and then redetermined that the Constitution offers basic protection to the woman's right to choose."
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Associate Justice Samuel Alito has a long track record of votes and writings opposing abortion rights, as a jurist and, earlier, a government lawyer.
Alito has voted to uphold every abortion law the court has considered since his 2006 confirmation, joining a majority to uphold the federal "partial-birth" abortion law and dissenting in the 2016 and 2020 cases.
As a federal appeals court judge, he voted to uphold a series of Pennsylvania abortion restrictions, including requiring a woman to notify her spouse before obtaining an abortion. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the notification rule in Casey and reaffirmed the abortion right in 1992 by a 5-4 vote.
Working for the Reagan administration in 1985, Alito wrote in a memo that the government should say publicly in a pending abortion case "that we disagree with Roe v. Wade." Around the same time, applying for a promotion, Alito noted he was "particularly proud" of his work arguing "that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Samuel Alito has a long track record of votes and writings opposing abortion rights, as a jurist and, earlier, a government lawyer.
Alito has voted to uphold every abortion law the court has considered since his 2006 confirmation, joining a majority to uphold the federal "partial-birth" abortion law and dissenting in the 2016 and 2020 cases.
As a federal appeals court judge, he voted to uphold a series of Pennsylvania abortion restrictions, including requiring a woman to notify her spouse before obtaining an abortion. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the notification rule in Casey and reaffirmed the abortion right in 1992 by a 5-4 vote.
Working for the Reagan administration in 1985, Alito wrote in a memo that the government should say publicly in a pending abortion case "that we disagree with Roe v. Wade." Around the same time, applying for a promotion, Alito noted he was "particularly proud" of his work arguing "that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."
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Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the court in 2009 with virtually no record on abortion issues, but has voted repeatedly in favor of abortion rights since then. Recently, when the court allowed Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect, Sotomayor accused her colleagues of burying "their heads in the sand." She was in the majority in the Texas and Louisiana abortion clinic cases.
Sotomayor's displeasure with the court's recent Texas ruling was evident at a recent virtual appearance she made. "I can't change Texas' law, but you can," she said.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the court in 2009 with virtually no record on abortion issues, but has voted repeatedly in favor of abortion rights since then. Recently, when the court allowed Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect, Sotomayor accused her colleagues of burying "their heads in the sand." She was in the majority in the Texas and Louisiana abortion clinic cases.
Sotomayor's displeasure with the court's recent Texas ruling was evident at a recent virtual appearance she made. "I can't change Texas' law, but you can," she said.
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Associate Justice Elena Kagan also has repeatedly voted in favor of abortion rights in more than 11 years as a justice. She is also arguably the most consistent voice on the court arguing for the importance of adhering to precedents and can be expected to try to persuade her colleagues not to jettison constitutional protections for abortion.
Kagan was in the majority when the court struck down the Texas and Louisiana restrictions on abortion clinics. More recently, Kagan called Texas' new abortion law "patently unconstitutional" and a "clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey."
Kagan had already grappled with the issue of abortion before becoming a justice. While working in the Clinton White House she was the co-author of a memo that urged the president for political reasons to support a late-term abortion ban proposed by Republicans in Congress, so long as it contained an exception for the health of the woman. Ultimately, President George W. Bush signed a similar late-term abortion ban without a health exception. The Supreme Court upheld it.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Elena Kagan also has repeatedly voted in favor of abortion rights in more than 11 years as a justice. She is also arguably the most consistent voice on the court arguing for the importance of adhering to precedents and can be expected to try to persuade her colleagues not to jettison constitutional protections for abortion.
Kagan was in the majority when the court struck down the Texas and Louisiana restrictions on abortion clinics. More recently, Kagan called Texas' new abortion law "patently unconstitutional" and a "clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey."
Kagan had already grappled with the issue of abortion before becoming a justice. While working in the Clinton White House she was the co-author of a memo that urged the president for political reasons to support a late-term abortion ban proposed by Republicans in Congress, so long as it contained an exception for the health of the woman. Ultimately, President George W. Bush signed a similar late-term abortion ban without a health exception. The Supreme Court upheld it.
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Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has perhaps the shortest record on abortion among the nine justices. He was in the majority allowing Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect. In dissent in 2020, he would have upheld Louisiana's abortion clinic restrictions. As an appeals court judge before joining the Supreme Court in 2017, Gorsuch dissented when his colleagues declined to reconsider a ruling that blocked then-Utah Gov. Gary Herbert from cutting off funding for the state branch of Planned Parenthood. But Gorsuch insisted at his Senate confirmation hearing that he was concerned about procedural issues, not the subject matter. "I do not care if the case is about abortion or widgets or anything else," he said.
Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP, Pool
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch has perhaps the shortest record on abortion among the nine justices. He was in the majority allowing Texas' restrictive abortion law to take effect. In dissent in 2020, he would have upheld Louisiana's abortion clinic restrictions. As an appeals court judge before joining the Supreme Court in 2017, Gorsuch dissented when his colleagues declined to reconsider a ruling that blocked then-Utah Gov. Gary Herbert from cutting off funding for the state branch of Planned Parenthood. But Gorsuch insisted at his Senate confirmation hearing that he was concerned about procedural issues, not the subject matter. "I do not care if the case is about abortion or widgets or anything else," he said.
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AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's name was added to former President Donald Trump's shortlist of Supreme Court candidates shortly after he sided with the administration in a 2017 case involving abortion. Trump chose him for the court the following year. As a justice, Kavanaugh dissented from the Louisiana decision and voted to allow the new Texas law to take effect, though he has taken a less absolutist stance than some of his conservative colleagues. In the Louisiana case, for example, Kavanaugh wrote that more information was needed about how the state's restrictions on clinics would affect doctors who provide abortions and seemed to suggest his vote could change knowing that information.
Kavanaugh's most extensive writing on abortion came while he was a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington. The Trump administration had appealed a lower court ruling ordering it to allow a pregnant 17-year-old immigrant in its custody to get an abortion. The administration's policy was to decline to help those minors get abortions while in custody.
Kavanaugh was on a three-judge panel that postponed the abortion, arguing that officials should be given a limited window to transfer the minor out of government custody to the care of a sponsor. She could then obtain an abortion without the government's assistance. The full appeals court later reversed the decision and the teenager obtained an abortion. Kavanaugh called that decision out-of-step with the "many majority opinions of the Supreme Court that have repeatedly upheld reasonable regulations that do not impose an undue burden on the abortion right recognized by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade."
Kavanaugh was criticized by some conservatives for not going as far as a colleague, Judge Karen Henderson, who stated unambiguously that an immigrant in the U.S. illegally has no right to an abortion. At his appeals court confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh dodged questions on his own personal beliefs on Roe v. Wade.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh's name was added to former President Donald Trump's shortlist of Supreme Court candidates shortly after he sided with the administration in a 2017 case involving abortion. Trump chose him for the court the following year. As a justice, Kavanaugh dissented from the Louisiana decision and voted to allow the new Texas law to take effect, though he has taken a less absolutist stance than some of his conservative colleagues. In the Louisiana case, for example, Kavanaugh wrote that more information was needed about how the state's restrictions on clinics would affect doctors who provide abortions and seemed to suggest his vote could change knowing that information.
Kavanaugh's most extensive writing on abortion came while he was a judge on the federal appeals court in Washington. The Trump administration had appealed a lower court ruling ordering it to allow a pregnant 17-year-old immigrant in its custody to get an abortion. The administration's policy was to decline to help those minors get abortions while in custody.
Kavanaugh was on a three-judge panel that postponed the abortion, arguing that officials should be given a limited window to transfer the minor out of government custody to the care of a sponsor. She could then obtain an abortion without the government's assistance. The full appeals court later reversed the decision and the teenager obtained an abortion. Kavanaugh called that decision out-of-step with the "many majority opinions of the Supreme Court that have repeatedly upheld reasonable regulations that do not impose an undue burden on the abortion right recognized by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade."
Kavanaugh was criticized by some conservatives for not going as far as a colleague, Judge Karen Henderson, who stated unambiguously that an immigrant in the U.S. illegally has no right to an abortion. At his appeals court confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh dodged questions on his own personal beliefs on Roe v. Wade.
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Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett's one public vote on the Supreme Court concerning abortion was to allow the Texas "fetal heartbeat" law to take effect. She also cast two votes as an appeals court judge to reconsider rulings that blocked Indiana abortion restrictions.
In 2016, shortly before the election that would put Trump in office, she commented about how she thought abortion law might change if Trump had the chance to appoint justices. "I ... don't think the core case — Roe's core holding that, you know, women have a right to an abortion — I don't think that would change," said Barrett, then a Notre Dame law professor. She said limits on what she called "very late-term abortions" and restrictions on abortion clinics would be more likely to be upheld.
Barrett also has a long record of personal opposition to abortion rights, co-authoring a 1998 law review article that said abortion is "always immoral." At her 2017 hearing to be an appeals court judge, Barrett said in written testimony, "If I am confirmed, my views on this or any other question will have no bearing on the discharge of my duties as a judge."
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Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett's one public vote on the Supreme Court concerning abortion was to allow the Texas "fetal heartbeat" law to take effect. She also cast two votes as an appeals court judge to reconsider rulings that blocked Indiana abortion restrictions.
In 2016, shortly before the election that would put Trump in office, she commented about how she thought abortion law might change if Trump had the chance to appoint justices. "I ... don't think the core case — Roe's core holding that, you know, women have a right to an abortion — I don't think that would change," said Barrett, then a Notre Dame law professor. She said limits on what she called "very late-term abortions" and restrictions on abortion clinics would be more likely to be upheld.
Barrett also has a long record of personal opposition to abortion rights, co-authoring a 1998 law review article that said abortion is "always immoral." At her 2017 hearing to be an appeals court judge, Barrett said in written testimony, "If I am confirmed, my views on this or any other question will have no bearing on the discharge of my duties as a judge."
