Madison Shainheit

Ian Murphy 

English 11000

29 March 2022

What Do Americans Think About Abortion?

Introduction

Abortion laws have been a hot topic in American politics in the past few years, with multiple states attempting to pass “heartbeat bills”, or other state-sanctioned trigger laws regarding abortion. Furthermore, the Trump administration attempted on multiple occasions to destabilize the legitimacy of Roe v. Wade (1973), although unsuccessful. These events have contributed to a complicated and often misleading view on abortion and female reproductive health in America. It begs the question, how do Americans really view abortions? Specifically, not just the old, white, male lawmakers in charge of the dizzying alterations to abortion laws, but the everyday American citizen. The women, the people of color, the elderly, the poor. When it comes down to it, each individual citizen has their own take on abortion, and it can be difficult to gain a sense of the overall feeling about abortion in America. The short answer to this question would be that, the majority of Americans lean pro-choice. However, delving into the topic brings forth an answer that is much more gray than simply “pro-choice” or “pro-life”.

A Brief History of Abortion Laws in America

In examining American citizen’s stance on abortion, it is imperative to first have an understanding of the legislation in place, as that in many cases bears significance in how people view abortion. For the vast majority of American history, abortions were illegal. This changed only in the past 50 years, beginning with a certain supreme court case. If you were to ask an American citizen about abortion laws, they would almost certainly be familiar with Roe v. Wade. However, this is only one of three cases that come together to create the abortion laws on a national level that most people are familiar with today. 

Roe v. Wade (1973)

A study on cultural abortion narratives defines Roe v. Wade, “In this case, the Court ruled 7-2 that the right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the 14^th Amendment can be extended to a woman’s decision to have an abortion, but this right must be balanced against a state’s interest in protecting women’s health and protecting potential human life” (Edgar). Most of this law is typical to what people assume, in that it legalizes abortions. However, there is a notable condition: the statement regarding balancing women’s health and potential human life. This caveat meant that the women could not have an abortion after the fetus was deemed “viable”. In this case, after the second trimester of pregnancy. This ruling provides the framework for modern abortion legislature, but standing alone, has significant restriction. 

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

According to the aforementioned study, this case, “reaffirmed the legal status of Roe, eliminated trimester restrictions with the addition of the concept of viability, and issued limits to the State’s interest in protecting ‘potential life;” (Edgar). This case mainly dealt with “undue burdens”, which were largely bureaucratic obstacles that were intended to delay a woman’s access to abortion until the fetus was deemed “viable”. Planned Parenthood v. Casey resolved these issues, so that women could access abortions more easily, and also removed the significant obstacle of trimester restrictions, meaning that women could have late-term abortions if needed. 

Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016)

This case dealt further with issues of “undue burdens”. The study states, “the Court ruled that Texas cannot restrict the delivery of abortion services that would create an undue burden for abortion seekers. The Court found that just because a state cites “women’s health” as a justification for abortion regulations does not make those regulations constitutional if the justifications are not based in credible facts” (Edgar). This ruling is important because it not only resolved more obstacles restricting womens’ access to abortion, but it also allowed the courts to override state laws which contradicted the ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

Where Does the Everyday Citizen Fall?

In understanding the three supreme court cases above, one may assume that, because the American courts have established that women can have legal access to abortions, that the majorty of Americans must also be pro-choice. This is only somewhat true. Statistically speaking, the majority of Americans are pro-choice, and the legislations could be a contributing factor, as laws can influence how people view certain issues. However, it would also be reasonable to assume that these legislations have had the opposite effect, as few supreme court rulings can be deemed as controversial as Roe v. Wade. Even with these cases in place, there are many smaller laws being passed on state level that restrict abortion access. It can therefore be understood that the clashing of laws on the national and state level leaves many Americans in a gray area regarding their view on abortion. 

Why the Gray Area?

To state that the majority of Americans support legalized abortion would be statistically true. According to Five Thirty Eight,  “The vast majority of Americans — somewhere between 85 and 90 percent, according to most polls — think abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances” (Thomson-DeVeaux). According to this poll, a majority of Americans can come to an agreement about legalized abortion. The circumstances of the abortion, however, are where many people begin to disagree, and where the “gray-area” is formed. 

Why Can’t They Decide?

The issue of abortion, on the surface, appears very black-and-white. You are either pro-choice, or pro-life. It may be difficult to understand why so many people fall into this gray area concerning abortion laws. The reason that people often cannot take a specific stance on abortion can essentially be reduced to three causes: knowledge, wording, and experience. “Knowledge”, in this case, refers to how acquainted each person actually is with abortion legislation. According to the article “What Americans Really Think About Abortion”, most Americans are not well-educated on womens’ reproductive health or abortion laws. According to the article, “When people are surveyed about whether they support a specific abortion restriction, they often lack key information that would shape their answer” (Thomson-DeVeaux). Laws and restrictions regarding abortions are often extremely nuanced, and without fairly extensive knowledge of fetal progression and development, it can be difficult to determine one’s stance on the law. This mere lack of knowledge often leaves people in a gray area regarding abortion. Furthermore, it can also cause people to lean more pro-life. According to the article, “In general, Americans think abortions happen later in a pregnancy than they typically do — and very few know that only a small share of abortions happen late in pregnancy” (Thomson-DeVeaux). Without proper understanding of abortions, people have a tendency to make uninformed decisions about abortion restricitions that unfortunately can impact other people. The second category is wording. In this instance, the specific wording used in poll questions has an impact on how people answer. A poll from Vox corroborates this, by showing how a simple change in wording changed their results by nine percent (figure 1).

Figure 1: chart on specific language

According to the poll, initially, 28 percent of participants said that “abortion should be legal in almost all cases” (Kliff). However, when the question was reworded to say “Women should have a legal right to safe and accessible abortion in almost all cases” (Kliff), 37 percent of participants agreed. This increase in agreement is accredited to the acknowledgement of the woman involved. Oftentimes, the awareness and humanization of the people involved can sway someone’s views. Something as simple as a change in wording can push someone into the gray area. The final category is experience. This could mean that the person themself has had an abortion, or they merely know or have talked to someone who has. The Vox article, “What Americans Think of Abortion”, claims, “People might have their views changed by a discussion — or those who support legal abortion already” (Kliff). This information is also corroborated by their poll. Oftentimes, talking with someone who has had an abortion can sway someone’s views because it allows them to have more empathy for the situation. 

Religious Factors

The Trump presidency brought on myriad restrictions regarding abortion. These rulings often went over well with Trump’s supporters, because he could appeal to them on a political level. This is due to the fact that many of his followers were evangelical christians. This could demonstrate an association between certain religious views and certain abortion views. For example, Jewish people tend to be more pro-choice due to differing religious texts regarding abortion. In contrast to this argument, however, a New York Times article claims, “We know from embryology, in other words, not Scripture or philosophy, that abortion kills a unique member of the species Homo sapiens, an act that in almost every other context is forbidden by the law” (Douthat). This individual views abortion as immoral and does not think it should be legalized, but never cites religion as an argument. Douthat’s article, however, is flawed in that he lacks credibility. The author never claims to have any knowledge on embryology, nor does he cite any sources, or use any data to back up his claims. The argument of this individual falls, once again, into the gray area. His opinion on abortion is fairly strict, and yet he concedes its necessity in cases of rape, for example. 

Conclusions

On the question of “how do Americans really view abortions?”, there are multiple routes to different answers. When observing from specifically a statistical perspective, it is apparent that most Americans support legal abortion. This is backed-up by the legislation, and every poll referenced. However, when it comes to the specifics of abortion, such as time, cause, or circumstance, people begin to disagree. This causes the general view of abortion in America to become fragmented, with the most obvious majority occurring in the gray area. Overall, this could be attributed to political divisiveness. The overwhelming disagreement between political parties on abortion laws leaves little room for any middle ground. It is likely that as long as there is such heavy political disagreement between the right and left, it will be difficult to ascertain a clear answer to this question.

Works Cited

Douthat, Ross. “The Case against Abortion.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Nov. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/opinion/abortion-dobbs-supreme-court.html. 

Edgar, Eir-Anne. “A Rational Continuum: Legal and Cultural Abortion Narratives in Tru…” European Journal of American Studies, European Association for American Studies, 23 June 2020, https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/15902. 

Kliff, Sarah. “What Americans Think of Abortion.” Vox, Vox, 2 Feb. 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/2/2/16965240/abortion-decision-statistics-opinions. 

Thomson-DeVeaux, Amelia. “What Americans Really Think about Abortion.” FiveThirtyEight, FiveThirtyEight, 1 Dec. 2021, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-americans-really-think-about-abortion/.