The forthcoming administration has made no secret of its desire to do away with Roe v. Wade, with Vice President-Elect Mike Pence famously saying that he wanted to consign the historic 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortions legal across the country to “the ash heap of history.”
President-Elect Donald Trump himself has suggested that women who get abortions should be punished and has vowed to appoint anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court. If Roe v. Wade were wholesale overturned, each state would have the power to determine whether women could access abortion services.
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However, a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center reveals that the majority of Americans want to see Roe v. Wade remain mostly intact. The survey data reveals that 69 percent of respondents say that the ruling should not be completely overturned.
Only 28 percent want to see it completely revoked. The survey says that the general public’s primarily positive feelings toward Roe v. Wade have remained mostly intact over the decades. Support for Roe v. Wade does have certain demographic factors, such as religious and political party affiliation. Gender alone didn’t play a significant role in terms of support — 72 percent of women surveyed didn’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade, and 67 percent of the men surveyed agreed with them.
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This is a marked increase in support for Roe v. Wade. Consider that in 1992, only 60 percent of surveyed Americans were in favor of upholding Roe v. Wade. That may be some cold comfort for pro-abortion rights activists as we count down to inauguration day.
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