Abortion Attitudes and Perceived Social Norms in post-Roe United States: Demography, Ideology and the Role of Institutions

The underpinnings of attitudes towards abortion rights remain poorly understood, even if abortion represents the prototypical culture war issue, receiving significant amounts of attention in several countries. It is particularly so in the United States, where its salience has increased in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The objective of this study is to advance the empirical political psychology research about correlates of abortion attitudes, focusing on the US. This study is based on original survey data collected in February 2023 from a sample of participants (n = 1,536) representative of the US adult population on key demographic characteristics. Respondents were asked to mark on a seven-point Likert scale to what extent they think Americans oppose or support abortion access under seven distinct circumstances, distinguishing between elective and traumatic reasons. Respondents were subsequently asked to go through the same survey items, now marking to what extent they themselves oppose or support abortion access. Multivariate linear and logistic models with state fixed effects were implemented to estimate the partial correlations with a host of demographic and ideological variables. Overall, the distribution of preferences for abortion access for traumatic reasons appears to be skewed towards the supportive side, while the one for elective reasons features a W shape, with preferences polarizing at the extremes (strong opposition/support) and at the neutral position. Both personal opinion and perceived public opinion significantly correlate with age, ethnicity, partisanship, ideology, religious denomination and level of trust in the Supreme Court and state legislatures. Interestingly, women appear to perceive a significant opposition to abortion rights for elective reasons. Moreover, comparing the average opinion emerging from the survey with the perceived public opinion, I provide evidence of a consistent underestimation of public support for abortion rights. Individuals identifying as “pro-life” drive most of this underestimation. I claim this is evidence of the existence of a form of conservative bias in the way individuals perceive public opinion. Conservative misperceptions among voters may contribute to a skewed information environment for politicians, potentially providing leverage for further restrictions to abortion access.