A year after Dobbs, women wonder if anyone is listening on abortion
It’s been a year since the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision was handed down by the Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, upending a nearly 50-year constitutional precedent set by Roe v. Wade that recognized a constitutional right to abortion, one that was reaffirmed by Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey in 1992.
Since Dobbs, chaos and confusion have reigned. Dozens of states have passed a wide array of restrictions and outright bans, both to abortions and to access to mifepristone, a safe and effective abortion medication. There are dozens of legal challenges winding through the court system, some filed by women who nearly lost their lives because of the restrictions. The political landscape has fundamentally changed — elected leaders, especially Republicans, seem slow to catch up.
Given the dramatic changes ushered in by Dobbs, we at All In Together, a women’s civic leadership organization, wanted to understand what women across the political, racial and geographic spectrum think and feel about abortion rights and how these insights are likely to affect their votes in the coming election. To this end, we conducted a poll delving into women’s views. What we found confirmed what many have suspected — that attitudes about abortion have changed and continue to loom large for the elections next year.
Abortion has always been and continues to be an emotional issue for Americans on both sides of the issue. When we asked women to describe how they felt after learning Roe was overturned, the top responses were “angry,” “disappointed” and “worried,” particularly for Democrats and independents. For Republican women, while “hopeful” was the top response, “disappointed” and “angry” were right behind. This is telling because this was true among women who support abortion restrictions but nevertheless felt negative emotions upon learning of the court’s ruling.
The anger and disappointment of Democratic and independent women has carried over into sustained political engagement. Abortion access is so important to Democratic women that 55% said the issue was a deal-breaker when it came to supporting candidates. This was also true for 46% of independent women, who have become critical swing votes in presidential and congressional election years.
Many polls before and after the Dobbs decision have shown that large majorities of Americans support abortion access, and the decision and subsequent restrictions in the states may have increased that support. Gallup last year found that support for abortion rights was at an all-time high. Polls about access to mifepristone have been similarly consistent. And voter referendum results bear this out: Everywhere abortion access has been put to voters since the Dobbs decision, abortion rights activists have secured resounding victories, even in traditionally red states such as Kansas and Kentucky. In those states, Republican women also voted to protect abortion rights, something that might have seemed unimaginable in the Roe era.
As dozens of states continue to pass abortion bans and restrictions, we also wanted to understand specifically what kind of abortion access or restrictions women would want or accept. Among those between the ages of 18 to 29, a huge majority, 75%, support either totally unrestricted access to abortion (41%) or abortion access with some restrictions (34%). This ardent support for abortion access, particularly without restriction, potentially signals a generational shift in how American voters think about abortion. (Older voters are more likely to support restrictions.)
Historically, younger women have been less engaged voters, so this previously might have mattered less. However, in the last two elections, young people have proved to be committed and active voters turning out for Democrats and making a real difference in electoral outcomes.
Women of color who are the backbone of the Democratic Party are also highly supportive of access to legal abortion — 71% say it should be legal in all or most cases. This stands out compared with 66% of men of color, 62% of white women and 49% of white men who support unrestricted abortion access. And in a trend with long-term, critical implications for every election, independent women are looking more like Democrats on the abortion issue. Their numbers aligned more with Democrats on nearly every abortion-related question we asked.
Again, though, our data also uncovered some surprising and very important trends among Republican voters. Significant numbers endorse abortion access in ways their party leadership should acknowledge. We found that 37% of Republican men and women think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and among Republican and Republican-leaning independent women younger than 50, the number soars to 47%.
Indeed, the Republican abortion trends have massive implications for the political landscape. Internal Republican polling shows that there has been a 6-point swing in the last year on the generic Senate ballot from R+3 to D+3. The shift is driven, according to the report, “overwhelmingly by Independent and new voters who identify abortion as one of their top issues.”
Unfortunately, the message does not seem to be getting through. GOP women in our poll said they do not think they’re being listened to on abortion policy; only 13% believe they’re listened to a lot. That’s compared with 23% of Democratic women (still a low number). Independent women are even lower at 7%.
Republican presidential candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who recently signed a six-week abortion ban in his state, have largely avoided addressing the subject when asked by the news media. Perhaps because he and others in leadership have yet to come to terms with the shifting attitudes toward abortion in their own party. Given our poll results, this may prove a serious tactical error.
But even among Democrats, there’s more to be done. Female voters told us clearly that abortion was their top voting issue, followed by guns and the economy, but in the midterm elections, many candidates focused heavily on other issues. Abortion can be a transformative winning strategy for Democrats if they are listening and proposing clear solutions to protecting abortion access.
One year after Dobbs created a political earthquake and rewrote many of the rules of modern politics, will leaders tune in and listen to the rising and evident chorus of female voters? If they don’t, they risk missing the larger soundtrack of cultural change afoot and their own demise foretold.
Lauren Leader is co-founder and CEO of All In Together, a nonprofit, nonpartisan women’s civic leadership organization. Echelon Insights conducted the referenced poll. It fielded the survey online from May 8 to 10 in English among a sample of 1,277 voters in the likely electorate nationwide, with a base sample of 856 voters in the likely electorate and an additional oversample of 421 women to achieve a total of 836 women respondents, using nonprobability sampling.