Turns Out Abortion Is Still Very Popular With Actual American Voters

Most Americans don’t want Roe v. Wade overturned, a new poll from CBS News finds. This is the latest piece of evidence that the abortion bans passed by states like Alabama and Georgia are a lot less popular than Republicans want you to believe.

According to the CBS poll, 67 percent of Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade as it is, while only 28 percent want it to be overturned. That’s a pretty clear mandate!

To make things even clearer, most of those polled said that if Roe was overturned, they’d be pissed. The poll found that 48 percent of Americans would be dissatisfied or angry if Roe was overturned, while 26 percent would be happy/satisfied and 23 percent wouldn’t care either way (we can guess what gender most of those people most likely are).

When CBS looked at feelings about Roe along party lines, it was obvious that even among Republicans, support for abortion rights is stronger than expected. A full 45 percent of Republicans want Roe kept as it is, while 48 percent want it overturned. However, 48 percent of Republicans do want some limits on abortion, compared to 20 percent of Democrats.

It isn’t news that abortion is generally supported among American voters. But Republicans from state legislatures to the Supreme Court have been determined to ignore these constituents.

In the last several weeks, Alabama, Georgia, and Missouri have all passed Draconian bans that could prevent nearly all women in those states from accessing safe abortions. Some of these bans impact abortions after a fetal “heartbeat” can be detected, while others ban all abortions except in the case of a severe threat to the mother’s health. Other states, including Louisiana, are heading in the same direction.

The explicit goal of these bills is to trigger a Supreme Court review of Roe v. Wade, which Republicans hope could lead to overturning the bill. Given this dire situation, it’s important to keep in mind that not only are abortion bans dangerous and oppressive, they are also undemocratic.