Good morning. With the Supreme Court set to hear a major abortion case, we look at the state of public opinion. |
 | | Supporters and opponents of abortion rights outside the Supreme Court last year.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times |
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How abortion views are different |
For nearly 50 years, public opinion has had only a limited effect on abortion policy. The Roe v. Wade decision, which the Supreme Court issued in 1973, established a constitutional right to abortion in many situations and struck down restrictions in dozens of states. |
But now that the court has agreed to hear a case that could lead to the overturning of Roe, voters and legislators may soon again be determining abortion laws, state by state. This morning's newsletter offers a guide to public opinion on the subject. |
Americans' views on abortion are sufficiently complex that both sides in the debate are able to point to survey data that suggests majority opinion is on their side — and then to argue that the data friendly to their own side is the "right" data. These competing claims can be confusing. But when you dig into the data, you discover there are some clear patterns and objective truths. |
Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans — 60 percent to 70 percent, in recent polls by both Gallup and Pew — say they do not want the Supreme Court to overturn Roe. Similarly, close to 60 percent of Americans say they favor abortion access in either all or most circumstances, according to Pew. |
These are the numbers that abortion rights advocates often emphasize. |
2. … and a pro-restriction majority |
The most confounding aspect of public opinion is a contradiction between Americans' views on Roe itself and their views on specific abortion policies: Even as most people say they support the ruling, most also say they favor restrictions that Roe does not permit. |
Roe, for example, allows only limited restrictions on abortion during the second trimester, mostly involving a mother's health. But less than 30 percent of Americans say that abortion should "generally be legal" in the second trimester, according to Gallup. Many people also oppose abortion in specific circumstances — because a fetus has Down syndrome, for example — even during the first trimester. |
One sign that many Americans favor significant restrictions is in the Gallup data. Gallup uses slightly different wording from Pew, creating an option that allows people to say that abortion should be legal "in only a few" circumstances. And that is the most popular answer — with 35 percent of respondents giving it (in addition to the 20 percent who say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances). |
Opinion on some major political issues has changed substantially over the last half-century. On taxes and regulation, people's views have ebbed and flowed. On some cultural issues — like same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization — views have moved sharply in one direction. |
But opinion on abortion has barely budged. Here is Gallup's four-category breakdown, going back to 1994: |
 | | By The New York Times | Source: Gallup |
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Abortion remains a vexing issue for large numbers of Americans in every generation — which suggests the debate is not likely to be resolved anytime soon. |
But the gap on abortion is not so large. If anything, it seems to be smaller than the partisan gap. That suggests, perhaps surprisingly, that there are more Democratic-voting women who favor significant abortion restrictions than Republican-voting women who favor almost universal access — while the opposite is true for men. |
(One note: When people are asked whether they identify as "pro-choice" or "pro-life," both the gender and age gaps grow. Those terms appear to prime people to think as Democrats or Republicans, rather than thinking through the details of their own policy views.) |
 | | By The New York Times | Source: Pew Research Center |
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One of the strongest predictors of a person's view on abortion is educational attainment, as you can see in the chart above. Working-class Americans often favor restrictions. Many religiously observant people also favor restrictions. |
It's yet another way in which the Democratic coalition is becoming tilted toward college graduates and the Republican coalition is going in the other direction. |
Both advocates and opponents of abortion access believe the issue is too important to be decided by public opinion. For advocates, women should have control over their bodies; after all, no major decision of men's health is subject to a veto by politicians or other voters. And for opponents of abortion access, the life of an unborn child is too important to be subject to almost any other consideration. |
If the Supreme Court overrules or substantially weakens Roe, this intense debate will play out state by state. Many states are likely to restrict abortion access substantially. |
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 | | President Biden driving Ford's new electric F-150.Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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| | Israeli-Palestinian Conflict |
- Diplomatic efforts to end the violence are gaining urgency, with the E.U., the U.N., and others calling on the Israeli military and Hamas militants to lay down their weapons.
- Israeli airstrikes have damaged Gaza's health and sewage systems and displaced tens of thousands of people, deepening a humanitarian crisis.
- Biden was said to have sharpened his tone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in a private call.
- Palestinians across the West Bank, Gaza and Israel went on strike.
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 | | Joshua trees appear likely to lose their habitat in their namesake national park by the end of the century.Max Whittaker for The New York Times |
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 | | Stella Fertig, now of Queens, N.Y., was a baby when she was carried onto a transport bound for a Nazi death camp.Yael Malka for The New York Times |
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Anonymous no more: In 1944, they were children on a train to a Nazi death camp. Researchers identified them, and they're still alive. |
Lives Lived: With deadpan comedy and Everyman good looks, Charles Grodin first drew notice on Broadway. He went on to star onscreen in "The Heartbreak Kid," "Midnight Run" and "Beethoven." He died at 86. |
 | | Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and Shrek (Mike Myers) in the film that started it all.Dreamworks Animation |
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Nobody at DreamWorks, then a relatively new animation studio, expected "Shrek" to be a hit. "Getting sent to 'Shrek' felt like being sent to Siberia," the director Vicky Jenson said. |
Released 20 years ago, the movie was a departure from other animated features of the time. Its hero was a misanthropic ogre. The cheeky and crude humor made fun of fairy-tale tropes. And the film was loaded with pop culture references and contemporary songs. |
Yet "Shrek" went on to spawn a billion-dollar franchise and win the first Academy Award for best animated feature. It "defined the kind of films the studio would go on to make: offbeat stories that, unlike Disney fairy tales, had more of an edge to them," as Gina Cherelus writes in The Times. |
Today, Shrek-related content is ubiquitous in memes and on social media, introducing the film to a new generation. At a sushi restaurant years ago, Jenson was delighted to overhear nearby diners talking about it. "One of them says, 'Have you seen "Shrek"?' And the other one is like, 'No, no, I don't go see kids' stuff,' and they go: 'No, no, it's not for kids. You have to go see it.'" — Sanam Yar, a Morning writer |
 | | Linda Xiao for The New York Times Food Stylist: Judy Kim. |
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The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was jocular. Here is today's puzzle — or you can play online. |
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
Lalena Fisher, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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