This statistic shows the results of a 2013 survey among Americans on whether they considered the majority of Americans to be pro-choice or pro-life. In 2013, 51 percent of respondents stated they thought most Americans were pro-choice. According to the same survey, 48 percent of respondents stated they were in fact pro-choice, while 45 percent stated they were pro-life.

In 2024, around 54 percent of adults in the United States stated they considerd themselves pro-choice, meaning they would leave the decision to abort a pregnancy up to the pregnant woman. Pro-life supporters, which made up 41 percent at that time, oppose abortion altogether. Abortion in the United States Abortion and the question whether one is pro-life (and thus against abortion) or pro-choice (i.e. in favor of abortion) is a controversial topic in the United States and the subject of many heated discussions. Before the notorious “Roe vs. Wade” decision of the Supreme Court in 1973, abortion was illegal in most U.S. states and only legal under certain circumstances in others. In short, the case “Roe vs. Wade” was a milestone in granting women freedom over their own body, making abortion legal, as it ruled that a woman’s right to privacy included her unborn child, and set regulations for the availability of abortions. However, in June of 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, making it possible for states to choose to completely ban abortion. As a result, around half of U.S. states were expected to ban the procedure. Pro-life and Pro-choice Ever since this decision, there have been two main mindsets (with many variations) when it comes to abortion. One is the pro-life attitude, which deems abortion murder and considers life starting at conception. The other is the pro-choice movement, which focuses on the well-being of the mother and insists that the woman alone should decide whether she wants to keep a baby or not. Politically, pro-lifers are usually seen as conservative, often belonging to the Republican camp, while pro-choicers are usually regarded as liberals who lean towards the Democrats. Of course, exceptions are not uncommon.

As of March 2024, among U.S. adults who believe that abortion should be restricted at all times during a pregnancy, ** percent were in favor of allowing abortion if the person's life is endangered by the pregnancy. For selected circumstances, except for when the fetus is diagnosed with a serious disability, anti-abortion supporters in the U.S. were likely to favor exceptions to abortion restriction.

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DAY 17,196 (April 4, 1975 - May 2, 2022)

This is a dataset that describes the changing perspectives on a woman's right to choose in America.

All data are official figures from Gallup, formerly known as the American Institute of Public Opinion, that have been compiled and structured by myself. I decided to create this dataset to explore how American views on abortion have evolved in the decades preceding the Dobbs V. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. In that particular court case, the Supreme Court also overturned the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision, ending the long-standing constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Abortion has become a fixture of American politics in recent years, but few are able to take a bipartisan stance on the issue. I hope that the objectiveness of the quantitative data in this dataset can allow for a more rational understanding of the issue.

Data Sources

The primary data source used was Gallup, an analytics company renowned for its expansive public opinion polls. With decades worth of data on the sentiments of Americans, Gallup is an organization uniquely equipped to illustrate the shifting attitudes on abortion.

1. Gallup's Historical Trends On Abortion - Gallup publicly released not only their opinion data about abortion, but also attached corresponding visualizations that conveyed to me the analytical potential of a compiled dataset.
2. Gallup's "Where Do Americans Stand On Abortion?" - While searching for quality data sources regarding abortion (ex. MMWR, CDC, PMSS), I found this Gallup article, which piqued my interest and led me to their "Historical Trends" page.

Reponses Being Tracked

• Q1꞉ Should Abortions Be Legal?
• Q2꞉ Are You Pro-Choice Or Pro-Life (AFTER)?
• Q2꞉ Are You Pro-Choice Or Pro-Life (NOT AFTER)?
• Q3꞉ Should Roe V. Wade Be Overturned Or Not?
• Q4꞉ Which Stage of Pregnancy Should Abortion Be Legal Or Illegal?
• Q5꞉ How Does A Political Candidateʼs Position On Abortion Affect Your Vote?
• Q6꞉ Is Abortion Morally Acceptable Or Wrong?
• Q7꞉ Are You Satisfied Or Dissatisfied With Nationʼs Policies On Abortion?

Dataset History

2023-02-04 - Dataset is created (17,474 days after the coverage start date).

GitHub Repository - The same data but on GitHub.

Code Starter

Link to Notebook

Acknowledgements

The idea for this dataset came from Ms. Katlen, my English teacher. A big thank you to her for the suggestion to explore how perspectives have changed about a woman's right to choose :)

Younger adults in the United States are far more likely to support the legalization of abortion, with a 2025 survey finding that ***percent of respondents aged between 18 and 29 years favored the legalization of abortion under any circumstance. This position was supported by just ***percent of adults over **.

It is perhaps no surprise that adults in the United States who identify as Democrats are far more likely to favor the legalization of abortion, with 59 percent of Democrats surveyed in 2025 supporting the legalization of abortion under any circumstance. This position was supported by only six percent of Republicans.

In 2022, the states with the highest rates of abortion per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years in the United States were New Mexico, Illinois, and Kansas. The states with the lowest rates of abortion were Missouri and South Dakota. Abortion differences among the states In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade allowing states to restrict the practice of abortion or outright ban it completely. A number of states immediately banned the procedure through trigger laws they had in place in anticipation of the ruling. Even before the ruling, abortion accessibility and rates varied greatly from state to state, but this difference has become even more pronounced. For example, in 2022, Florida had an abortion rate of 20.5 per 1,000 women, while the rate in Missouri was just .1. Florida had the highest total number of abortions that year, followed by New York and Illinois. While Florida reported around 82,581 abortions in 2022, there were just 88 such procedures in Missouri. Public opinion on abortion In the United States, the debate surrounding abortion is often divided among those who are “pro-life” and think abortion should be restricted or banned and those who are “pro-choice” and believe the decision to abort a pregnancy should be up to the woman. Gallup polls show the distribution of people in the United States who are pro-life or pro-choice has fluctuated over the years but in 2023 around 52 percent of respondents stated they were pro-choice while 44 percent said they were pro-life. Older respondents are more likely to express views limiting access to abortion, while younger people are more likely to believe abortion should be legal under any circumstance. However, just a small minority of people of all ages believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

This poll is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on the presidency and on a range of other political and social issues. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of President Bill Clinton and his handling of the presidency, as well as their views of Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore and Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush. Those queried were asked whether they intended to vote in the November 7, 2000, presidential election and for whom they would vote if the election were held that day, given a choice among Gore (Democratic Party), Bush (Republican Party), conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (Reform Party), and consumer advocate Ralph Nader (Green Party). A series of questions addressed the presidential campaigns of Gore and Bush, including which candidate was most prepared to serve as president, cared about the needs of people like the respondent, said what he believed, and would keep his campaign promises. Views on the candidates' proposed policies were also elicited, including which candidate was more likely to maintain a strong economy, improve education, preserve Social Security, better handle an international crisis, and choose Supreme Court justices who were pro-choice. Additional topics covered the size and role of the federal government, citizen interest level in the 2000 campaign, the direction the country was headed in, whether it mattered who the president was, and whether respondents viewed their vote as being for or against the Clinton presidency. Background information on respondents includes age, gender, political party, political orientation, voter registration and participation history, marital status, religion, education, race, Hispanic descent, years in community, union membership, and household income.

Abortion remains a controversial topic in the United States and has been an exceptionally political topic since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. This ruling has allowed individual states to completely ban the procedure if they choose, which a number of states have since done. In 2022, the year of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the highest rates of legal abortion in the United States were among women aged 25 to 29 years, with around **** abortions per 1,000 women. How many abortions are there in the United States each year? In 2022, there were an estimated ******* legal abortions in the United States. This was a decrease from the year before, and in general, the number of legal abortions per year in the U.S. has decreased since the late 1990s. The rate of abortion has also decreased significantly. In 1997, the rate of legal abortions per 100 live births was ****, but this had dropped to **** per 100 live births by the year 2022. At that time, the states with the highest rates of abortion were New Mexico, Illinois, and Kansas. Public opinion on abortion As of 20234, around ** percent of U.S. adults considered themselves pro-choice, while ** percent were pro-life. However, these numbers have fluctuated over the years, with a larger share of people identifying as pro-life just five years earlier. Nevertheless, a poll from 2024 indicated that only a small minority of U.S. adults want abortion to be illegal in all cases, with younger people more likely to support the legalization of abortion in any circumstance. Furthermore, surveys have shown that since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, U.S. adults have expressed being much more dissatisfied with abortion policy in the country, desiring less strict policy.

Among respondents surveyed in 29 countries, Sweden and France had the largest population in favor of abortion. The Netherlands followed with 76 percent of respondents in favor. On the contrary, India, Malaysia and Indonesia had the lowest percentages of people in favor of abortion.

The abortion rate decreased by 100 percent in 13 states in the U.S. between April 2022 and June 2023. In June of 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned its ruling on Roe v. Wade, the case that protected the right to terminate a pregnancy. Roe v. Wade In June 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling that overturned the 1973 case, Roe v. Wade. Since then, 12 states have completely banned abortion, while other state’s place time limits on abortion. The new ruling – outlined in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – was an extremely divisive decision and caused considerable controversy and backlash. More than half of the American population considers themselves to be “pro-choice,” and even religiously affiliated Americans generally do not think that abortion should be illegal in all cases. While the Roe v. Wade ruling did not make abortion outright illegal, it did hand back the power to make decisions regarding abortion rights back to state legislatures. The ruling has placed millions of women at risk, and healthcare providers in legal limbo as to what kinds of procedures they are permitted to perform. Changes in the abortion rate The United States has seen a gradual decline in its abortion rate over the last decades. In the months following the Supreme Court decision, the abortion rate in each state has changed in different ways. States friendly to abortion that border states with more restrictive abortion policies have seen the most dramatic increases in performed abortions. Kansas, for example, saw a 72.2 percent increase in abortions after the nearby states of Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas increased restrictions. A similar story has played out in North Carolina, where abortions increased by 44.6 percent. In this case, the nearby states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee became less friendly to abortion. While the possibility to travel to a neighboring state to receive care is not illegal, it can be markedly expensive. This means that ultimately, people with lower incomes will have a disproportionately difficult time accessing abortion care.

In a survey conducted in September 2019, around 53 percent of respondents in Mexico City agreed with the statement "The law must allow women the right to abortion". In Oaxaca, state which decriminalized abortion in 2019, only 27 percent of respondents were in favor of women's right to abortion. Mexico City, Oaxaca, Hidalgo, and Veracruz are the only jurisdictions in Mexico where abortion is decriminalized within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.

As of 2024, a total of 277,268 patients performed legal abortions in Mexico City, of which 189,525 were women who resided in the capital. Meanwhile, over 77,160 patients came from the neighboring state of Mexico. Mexico City was the first state in the country where women could have abortions legally within the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. An outlier in an ocean of dissonanceVarying from state to state, each region in Mexico is unique regarding abortion laws and enforcement. Apart from rape, which is unanimously recognized across all states, factors such as maternal fatality, health, and child defects are the only exceptions for abortions in most local municipalities' penal codes. In many conservative parts of the country, such as Nuevo León, 141 criminal investigations were prosecuted due to abortion in 2023. Given abortion policies' political polarization, public opinion often falls along the lines of 'pro-choice' versus 'pro-life' disputes. According to a 2019 poll, citizens in Zacatecas, Chiapas, and Tamaulipas overwhelmingly disfavored women's right to abortion by over 70 percent, while citizens in Mexico City and Baja California favored women's right to abortion by approximately 53 percent. A population at strife with abortion rightsIn 2008, the Mexican supreme court decriminalized abortion in Mexico City, which set-off a historical precedent for women's rights across the region. Overall, Mexico along with Uruguay, Argentina, Colombia, and Cuba are the only five countries in the region to have passed pro-abortion legislation. Yet, the subject across the region continues to be a divisive opinion. According to a 2023 survey, Argentina remains the most progressive population, with 54 percent believing abortion should be allowed according to the woman's determination. However, across the region, around 35 percent of Latin Americans believe that abortion should only be allowed under certain circumstances, such as rape. Alternatively, birth control measures have become increasingly popular in the region. As of 2019, people in Latin America and the Caribbean were the second largest population using contraception in the world.

The rate of legal abortions in the United States has decreased over the last few decades. In 2022, there were around 19.9 legal abortions per 100 live births, whereas the rate was 34 abortions per 100 live births in the year 1990. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in 2022, states within the U.S. have the right to severely limit or completely ban abortion if they wish, meaning that access to such procedures varies significantly depending on the state or region. Abortion in the U.S. In 2022, there were over 613,000 legal abortions in the United States. Abortion rates in the U.S. are highest among women aged 25 to 29 years and more common among unmarried women than those who are married. In 2022, there were approximately 38 legal abortions per 100 live births among unmarried women compared to four abortions per 100 live births among women who were married.
Public opinion The issue of abortion has been and remains a divisive topic among the general public and continues to be a relevant political issue. As of May 2023, around 44 percent of the population was estimated to be pro-life, while 52 percent were pro-choice and three percent mixed or neither. However, this distribution has fluctuated over the years, with pro-lifers accounting for a larger percentage than pro-choicers as recently as 2019.

The number of abortion-related deaths in the U.S. has decreased dramatically since 1973. In 1973, the number of deaths related to abortions was 47. In 2021, the number of reported deaths related to abortions had decreased to just five. Abortion is the act of ending a pregnancy so that it does not result in the birth of a baby. Abortions in the U.S. Abortions can be performed in a surgical setting or a medical setting (the pill). The number of legal abortions reported in the U.S. has generally declined yearly since 1990. The most frequently performed kind of abortion in the U.S. in 2022 were medical abortions. Abortion and the legality and morality of the procedure has been a publicly debated topic in the United States for many years. Public opinions on abortion Opinions on abortion in the United States can be divided into two campaigns. Pro-choice is the belief that women have the right to decide when they want to become pregnant and if they want to terminate the pregnancy through an abortion. Pro-life, is the belief that women should not be able to choose to have an abortion. As of 2023, around 52 percent of the U.S. population was pro-choice, while 44 percent considered themselves pro-life. However, these shares have fluctuated over the past couple decades, with a majority of people saying they were pro-life as recently as 2019.