Political Parties Are Divided On Abortion Rights. American Women Aren’t.

A new survey from KFF, a health policy research nonprofit, finds that bans are widely unpopular, and most women support national abortion protections.

By Shefali Luthra, 19th News

Originally published by The 19th

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Most women between the ages of 18 and 49 support a national right to abortion, oppose a national ban on the procedure, and don’t believe abortion rights should be left up to individual states, according to a new survey from KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization.

Majorities of Democratic and independent women oppose restrictions and support a law enshrining a national abortion right, the poll found; so do almost half of all Republican women.

The survey was fielded from May 15 to June 18, looking at a nationally representative sample of 3,901 people ages 18 to 49 who identified as women, trans, nonbinary or another gender. It found that almost 1 in 10 either struggled to get an abortion after Roe v. Wade’s overturn or knew someone who had. Almost two-thirds said they feared abortion bans could jeopardize the health of their own future pregnancy or that of someone close to them — including almost 40 percent of Republican respondents.

“Across the board, people are really concerned about the impact of abortion restrictions and abortion bans on people’s health and on safety,” said Usha Ranji, associate director for Women’s Health Policy at KFF.

The findings underscore that, while the major political parties remain divided on abortion, American women — and especially those considered to be of reproductive age — are fairly aligned.

They largely oppose the two stances backed by members of the Republican Party: the proposed 15-week ban some politicians have touted, as well as former President Donald Trump’s current stance of leaving abortion policy mostly up to individual states. And they support Vice President Kamala Harris’ preference of enacting national abortion rights protections.

A person’s political party affiliation doesn’t have a big influence over whether they are more likely to have had an abortion, either. The survey found that about 14 percent of respondents — about 1 in 7 — have had an abortion in their lifetime. Black and Hispanic respondents were more likely than White ones to say they’d had an abortion.

About 8 percent of those who identified as “pro-life” said they had had an abortion, compared to about 17 percent of those who identified as pro-choice. But the numbers were remarkably similar across Republicans, Democrats and independents: 12 percent, 14 percent and 15 percent, respectively.

“Pregnancy is a really common experience, and complications can arise, and many cases of pregnant people don’t want to be pregnant,” Ranji said. “Abortion is a medical service. It is health care, and people across all walks of life have used abortion services and continue to.”

The survey also sheds light into just how remarkably Roe’s overturn — and the rash of abortion bans it has let take effect — has reshaped people’s lives.

About 17 percent of the respondents said they had changed their contraceptive habits, including starting birth control or switching to a more effective method, or keeping emergency contraception on hand. Asian or Pacific Islander, Black and Hispanic respondents were all more likely than those who were White to say they had changed how they approach contraception.

Of those who said they or someone they know has struggled to get an abortion in the past two years, most reported that the affected person had traveled out of state for care.

Income made a difference. About 75 percent of those who are financially better off said they or the person they knew had traveled out of state, compared to about 62 percent of those with lower incomes. (Higher income respondents were those defined as those earning at or above 200 percent of the federal poverty line; in 2024, that was $3,407 per month for a household of two.)

And for many, figuring out how to get an abortion — or how to pay for it — remains difficult. About 1 in 3 who said they or someone they knew struggled to get an abortion indicated that having the money to pay for the procedure was another barrier. About 40 percent said they did not know where to go for care.

Responses from some of the people surveyed underscore the difficulty of lining up all the resources needed to get care. When asked why she could not receive an abortion, one respondent said it was because she was “unable to afford the procedure” and that by the time she could have raised the money, she would have been too far along in her pregnancy. Another said she could not afford to go out of state. Another wrote: “I lived an hour and a half from the location and my ride didn’t show up.”

Most respondents did not know the legal status of abortion their state, and almost one-fourth incorrectly described their state’s abortion laws. About 26 percent said they would not know where to go if they needed information about how to get an abortion.

Most respondents knew about medication abortion, the two-drug regimen that now accounts for about two-thirds of all abortions. Abortion providers have relied on this method to reach patients in states with abortion bans, because health care professionals in states with legal protections can prescribe and mail pills to people in states with restrictions.

That mail-order method accounts for a growing share of abortions done in the United States, but the KFF survey suggests that people’s awareness of how to obtain the pills is significantly limited. Only 19 percent knew that people in their states could order them online, and people with lower incomes were less likely to say they knew about this option. So were Black and Hispanic respondents compared to those who identified as White, Asian or Pacific Islander, and so were those who lived in states with abortion bans.

“The information is getting out there to some extent, clearly — but there are a lot of people who don’t know,” Ranji said.

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