A plurality of Americans supports the sort of late-pregnancy abortion bans that have roiled the political landscape by winning approval in a number of states, most recently in Texas, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
The support for state bans 20 weeks after fertilization comes amid continued evidence that most Americans favor some restrictions on abortion, with far fewer saying the procedure should be legal or illegal in all cases.
In the new survey of 1,000 Americans, 44% said they would support a ban in their state on abortions 20 weeks postfertilization, compared with 37% who would oppose such a ban.
Overall, 28% of respondents say abortion should be legal under all circumstances, while 21% say it should be legal most of the time. The poll found that 11% say abortion should be illegal without exceptions, while 37% say it should be illegal with some exceptions.
Nebraska in 2010 became the first state to pass a law banning abortion 20 weeks after fertilization. That mark is generally equivalent to 22 weeks of pregnancy, which is timed from the woman's last menstrual period.
A number of states have passed 20-week bans since, including the measure in Texas, which state lawmakers approved this month after an initial attempt to pass the bill in June was stymied by a state senator's filibuster that drew national attention.
Some of the state laws are facing court challenges, including those in Georgia, Idaho and Arizona, which set its ban at 18 weeks. The Supreme Court has ruled that states can't restrict access to abortion before a fetus is "viable" to live outside the womb. Doctors generally consider viability to start between 24 and 26 weeks after the mother's last menstrual period—a mark later than the 20-week bans.
The House last month passed legislation to impose a national ban on abortions 20 weeks after fertilization, although the measure has little chance of moving in the Senate.
The Journal/NBC poll showed a complexity of views on the bans. More women than men supported the state bans, 46% to 40%. Even college-educated women, a group that strongly supports abortion rights, tipped toward favoring the 20-week restrictions. Among that group, 62% said abortion should be legal, but only 40% opposed the 20-week bans, compared with 44% who backed a ban at 20 weeks.
At the same time, the poll underscored how abortion remains delicate political terrain. Just 26% of Americans said that abortion-related legislation should be a high priority for Congress and state legislatures, while 72% said it should be a low or medium priority.
Passion for the issue is highest among those who oppose abortion rights. By a large majority, those who say abortion legislation should be a high priority believe the procedure should be entirely or mostly illegal.
Just over half of Americans in the poll said they were concerned that Republicans would go too far in promoting conservative social policy in the areas of abortion and gay marriage, compared with 44% who said they were worried about Democrats going too far on social issues.
The number of abortions nationally appears to have leveled off at about 1.2 million a year after declining annually through the 1990s and most of the 2000s. Of those, about 1.5% occur after the 20-week postfertilization mark, according to various estimates.
Elizabeth Nash, who monitors state legislation at the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights, said the 20-week restrictions "have the potential to upend abortion rights, because they change the standard under which abortion is and is not permissible."
Proponents of the late-term restrictions say they are designed to win favor even among those voters who tend to support access to abortion under the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
"The American people are generally much more pro-life than people think," said Charmaine Yoest, head of Americans United for Life, an advocacy group that opposes abortion rights. "They may not want to overturn Roe, but they do want common-sense restrictions."
Write to Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com
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