How US adults feel about legal abortion 3 years after Roe was
overturned, according to AP-NORC poll
[July 25, 2025]
By GEOFF MULVIHILL and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX
Three years after the Supreme Court opened the door to state abortion
bans, most U.S. adults say abortion should be legal — views that look
similar to before the landmark ruling.
The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public
Affairs Research poll show that about two-thirds of U.S. adults think
abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
About half believe abortion should be available in their state if
someone does not want to be pregnant for any reason.
That level of support for abortion is down slightly from what an AP-NORC
poll showed last year, when it seemed that support for legal abortion
might be rising.
Laws and opinions changed when Roe was overturned
The June 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and
opened the door to state bans on abortion led to major policy changes.
Most states have either moved to protect abortion access or restrict it.
Twelve are now enforcing bans on abortion at every stage of pregnancy,
and four more do so after about six weeks' gestation, which is often
before women realize they're pregnant.
In the aftermath of the ruling, AP-NORC polling suggested that support
for legal abortion access might be increasing.
Last year, an AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that 7 in 10 U.S.
adults said it should be available in all or most cases, up slightly
from 65% in May 2022, just before the decision that overruled the
constitutional right to abortion, and 57% in June 2021.
The new poll is closer to Americans' views before the Supreme Court
ruled. Now, 64% of adults support legal abortion in most or all cases.
More than half the adults in states with the most stringent bans are in
that group.
Similarly, about half now say abortion should be available in their
state when someone doesn’t want to continue their pregnancy for any
reason — about the same as in June 2021 but down from about 6 in 10 who
said that in 2024.
Adults in the strictest states are just as likely as others to say
abortion should be available in their state to women who want to end
pregnancies for any reason.
Democrats support abortion access far more than Republicans do. Support
for legal abortion has dropped slightly among members of both parties
since June 2024, but nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and roughly 4 in 10
Republicans say abortion should be legal in at least most instances.
Fallout from state bans has influenced some people's positions — but
not others
Seeing what's happened in the aftermath of the ruling has strengthened
the abortion rights position of Wilaysha White, a 25-year-old Ohio mom.
She has some regrets about the abortion she had when she was homeless.
“I don’t think you should be able to get an abortion anytime,” said
White, who calls herself a “semi-Republican.”
But she said that hearing about situations — including when a Georgia
woman was arrested after a miscarriage and initially charged with
concealing a death — is a bigger concern.
“Seeing women being sick and life or death, they’re not being put first
— that’s just scary,” she said. “I’d rather have it be legal across the
board than have that.”
Julie Reynolds’ strong anti-abortion stance has been cemented for
decades and hasn’t shifted since Roe was overturned.
“It’s a moral issue,” said the 66-year-old Arizona woman, who works
part-time as a bank teller.
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Abortion rights activists and Women's March leaders protest as part
of a national day of strike actions outside the Supreme Court, June
24, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
 She said her view is shaped partly
by having obtained an abortion herself when she was in her 20s. “I
would not want a woman to go through that,” she said. “I live with
that every day. I took a life.”
Support remains high for legal abortion in certain situations
The vast majority of U.S. adults — at least 8 in 10 — continue to
say their state should allow legal abortion if a fetal abnormality
would prevent the child from surviving outside the womb, if the
patient’s health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy, or if the
person became pregnant as a result of rape or incest.
Consistent with AP-NORC’s June 2024 poll, about 7
in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favor protecting access
to abortions for patients who are experiencing miscarriages or other
pregnancy-related emergencies.
In states that have banned or restricted abortion, such medical
exceptions have been sharply in focus.
This is a major concern for Nicole Jones, a 32-year-old Florida
resident.
Jones and her husband would like to have children soon. But she said
she’s worried about access to abortion if there’s a fetal
abnormality or a condition that would threaten her life in
pregnancy, since they live in a state that bans most abortions after
the first six weeks of gestation.
“What if we needed something?” she asked. “We’d have to travel out
of state or risk my life because of this ban.”
Florida's law has exceptions, including to save the life of a
pregnant woman or prevent irreversible impairment of bodily
functions. But some patients, advocates and health care providers
across the country have often said that restrictions still limit
access to emergency care.
Adults support protections for seeking abortions across state
lines — but not as strongly
There's less consensus on whether states that allow abortion should
protect access for women who live in places with bans.
Just over half support protecting a patient's right to obtain an
abortion in another state and shielding those who provide abortions
from fines or prison time. In both cases, relatively few adults —
about 2 in 10 — oppose the measures and about 1 in 4 are neutral.
More Americans also favor than oppose legal protections for doctors
who prescribe and mail abortion pills to patients in states with
bans. About 4 in 10 “somewhat” or “strongly” favor those
protections, and roughly 3 in 10 oppose them.
Such telehealth prescriptions are a key reason that the number of
abortions nationally has risen even as travel for abortion has
declined slightly.
There have been legal challenges to telehealth abortions, including
a lawsuit filed this week by a Texas man claiming a California
physician violated state and federal law by sending pills to the
plaintiff’s girlfriend.
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,437 adults was conducted July 10-14, 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 adults overall is plus or minus 3.6 percentage
points.
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