(LifeSiteNews) — Support for legal abortion jumped more than 20 percentage points among self-identified Democrats between 2007 and 2023, according to new polling data released by the Pew Research Center.
The poll, which surveyed 5,079 U.S. adults between March 27 and April 2, 2023, found that 84% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents believe that it “should be legal” to get an abortion “in all or most cases,” compared with just 63% in 2007.
Meanwhile, 40% of respondents who identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning said abortions should almost always be legal, an uptick of just 1% in the decade and a half since 2007.
Writing for the Washington Examiner, Christopher Tremoglie suggested that while “Republicans were always portrayed as forcing their views on abortion,” the latest numbers indicate that it’s Democrats who have sought to impose pro-abortion ideology upon the nation.
According to Tremoglie, the data shows it’s “actually Democrats who’ve become more radical on abortion, not Republicans.”
While highlighting the growing support for abortion among Democrats, the Pew Research poll suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center, which overturned the federal “right” to abortion established in Roe v. Wade, didn’t significantly affect Americans’ existing attitudes regarding whether or not abortion should be legal.
According to the report, roughly “6-in-10 Americans (62%) continue to say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 36% who say it should be illegal in all or most cases.”
Relatively significant shifts occurred, however, in responses concerning the ease with which abortions can be obtained.
According to the poll, “54% majority of Americans nationwide say it would be very easy or somewhat easy to get an abortion in the area where they live,” an 11% drop compared with 2019 numbers.
Meanwhile, approximately “4-in-10 (42%) say it would be very or somewhat difficult to get an abortion in areas near them, up 10 percentage points from four years ago.”
The drop in ease of access to the lethal procedure comes as a bevy of Republican-led states have enacted laws to protect the preborn after the overthrow of Roe v. Wade. Those laws, ranging from gestational age limits to complete bans, have already reportedly saved the lives of tens of thousands of unborn babies.