Almost two-thirds of Americans support legal abortion in all or nearly all situations, while opposition is stronger among Christian nationalists and other religious conservatives, according to a new report by Public Religion Research Institute.
In interviews with 22,000 U.S. adults last year, PRRI found 63% of respondents approve of abortion access in all or most cases, compared to 34% who oppose the practice in all or most cases. Only 8% of Americans say abortion should be banned regardless of circumstances.
The survey was conducted two years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal abortion rights in its landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, leaving the issue to the states.
The adherents of most faith traditions say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, led by Buddhists (84%), Unitarian-Universalists (83%), the religiously unaffiliated (83%), Jewish Americans (79%) and Black Protestants (71%), PRRI reported.
The only major religious groups with majority opposition to abortion are white evangelicals (70%), Latter-day Saints (69%), Hispanic Protestants (53%) and Jehovah’s Witnesses (53%).
“Americans who seldom or never attend religious services (78%) are more likely than Americans who attend services monthly or a few times a year (61%) and Americans who attend services weekly or more (35%) to say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases,” the PRRI report states.
Similarly, 69% of abortion supporters seldom or never read religious texts, 68% rarely or never make financial contributions to religious groups and 44% seldom or never pray at home. By comparison, 68% of abortion opponents pray at least once a week, 45% read religious texts at least once a week and 27% make weekly financial contributions to faith-based institutions.
“Supporters of abortion legality are also more likely than opponents to reject Christian nationalist ideology,” the report explains, with 81% of abortion opponents qualifying as rejectors or skeptics of the white supremacist cultural framework. Just 13% of abortion rights supporters are Christian nationalism sympathizers and only 4% could be labeled as adherents.
Among abortion opponents, on the other hand, only 6% qualify as rejectors of Christian nationalism, 35% as skeptics and 56% as either sympathizers or adherents, as defined by PRRI.
These same trends held true for Americans as a whole.
PRRI also looked at the data on a state-by-state basis: “In all 50 states, the higher a state’s residents scored on the Christian nationalism scale, the less likely they are to support the legality of abortion.”
Majorities of residents in most states say abortion should be legal. Only seven states have a minority in support of abortion rights: Arkansas (49%), Idaho (48%), Louisiana (42%), Oklahoma (46%), Tennessee (47%), Utah (44%) and West Virginia (41%).
The share of people who say abortion should be illegal in all cases is small across the nation. The largest share of people who hold that abolitionist view are found in Nebraska (17%), Mississippi and South Dakota (14%), Louisiana (13%), and North Dakota and South Carolina (12%).
States with the highest levels of support for abortion rights include Washington (73%) and Connecticut, Illinois, New York and Nevada (72%).
The PRRI study also found sharp divides by partisanship. Among Democrats, abortion rights support has risen from 66% in 2014 to 85% in 2024.
While Republicans are not as likely to support abortion rights, the share who do has increased by 4 points since 2010, from 35% to 39%.
Independents (69%) outpace all Americans in support for abortion rights.
Most Americans (68%) also oppose bans on the mailing or use of FDA-approved drugs for medical abortion, the study found, including 81% of Democrats, 72% of independents and 53% of Republicans.
Such bans currently exist in Arizona, Florida and Texas.
