Abortion poll shows GOP dilemma
The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has provided Republicans with some difficult choices on how far to go in curtailing abortion rights across the country. Among the ideas already codified in some states and under consideration elsewhere: banning abortion without exceptions for rape and incest, banning mail-order abortion pills, banning travel across state lines for abortions and even banning abortion nationwide.
A new poll shows that all of these proposals are broadly unpopular with the American public. More interestingly, in many cases, they’re also pretty unpopular among Republicans.
The Public Religion Research Institute is out with one of the first big polls testing abortion views in a post-Roe world. The big takeaway is that caution is the watchword for Republicans who are newly empowered to severely restrict abortion rights.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recently indicated that a GOP-controlled
Congress could consider banning abortion nationwide, and former vice president Mike Pence has endorsed the idea. The PRRI poll shows that just 12% of Americans support that approach, while 53% want Congress to pass a law preserving the right to abortion. Another 32% prefer a middleground approach of letting states decide the issue.
Such a ban is unlikely unless Republicans gain 60 votes in the Senate or nix the filibuster something McConnell says he wouldn’t do for an abortion ban. (Democratic candidates have still seized upon McConnell entertaining the idea in their campaign ads.)
But some proposals that are more actionable – and have been acted upon – suffer from a similarly bipartisan deficit.
Republicans and antiabortion groups in several states are considering legislation to ban crossing state lines to obtain abortions in states with fewer restrictions – even as it’s not clear how that could pass legal muster. The poll shows that 77% of Americans and 64% of Republicans oppose such a ban.
Republicans in even more states are considering laws making it explicitly illegal to order abortion pills by mail. It’s a central battleground in the fight over access to abortion, given increasing use of the pills and the possibility of ordering them undetected. The poll shows that 72% of Americans and 56% of Republicans oppose such a ban.
Another central issue in Republicans’ post-Roe plans is how they address exceptions for rape and incest. Most ‘‘trigger laws,’’ which went into effect in red states when Roe was overturned, have no such exceptions.
The poll shows that 72% of Americans and 52% of Republicans oppose an abortion ban that would provide an exception only for the life of the pregnant individual - similar to polls conducted on such exceptions before Roe was overturned.