I just looked through the last 15-25 years of of polling on abortion. Depending on which questions you ask -- and Gallup asked a lot of them -- you can get opinions moving slightly in either direction over time. I'd say this means that opinions have stayed more or less the same.
The abortion bans we're seeing in Alabama and other places aren't the result of a change in public opinion. They're effects of Republican electoral success over the past few decades. Republicans pass these laws now because they expect Republican-appointed anti-abortion judges to approve them. The judges were confirmed because Republicans won elections. (Some people say the judges probably won't approve these extreme laws. But the laws they will approve will soon be forthcoming.)
I think Republicans won the key elections largely because of weird stuff involving electoral maps. Their party has become more rural and less urban, giving it increasing structural advantages in Congress and the Electoral College. If not for these advantages, Democrats would have won 6 of the past 7 Presidential elections and they'd have a solid Senate majority. (The Republican state legislators passing these bills are often in gerrymandered districts, so they made their own luck.)
Anyway, as far as I can tell, people didn't change their minds that much one way or the other. Republicans got stronger because we have a badly designed system that was established as a compromise with powerful slaveowners. They manipulated that system for their own purposes. Fixing the system so that it doesn't give Republicans constant partisan advantages is how you stop abortion bans, protect refugees from brutal mistreatment, and save the planet from climate change. So it's something I really focus on.
The abortion bans we're seeing in Alabama and other places aren't the result of a change in public opinion. They're effects of Republican electoral success over the past few decades. Republicans pass these laws now because they expect Republican-appointed anti-abortion judges to approve them. The judges were confirmed because Republicans won elections. (Some people say the judges probably won't approve these extreme laws. But the laws they will approve will soon be forthcoming.)
I think Republicans won the key elections largely because of weird stuff involving electoral maps. Their party has become more rural and less urban, giving it increasing structural advantages in Congress and the Electoral College. If not for these advantages, Democrats would have won 6 of the past 7 Presidential elections and they'd have a solid Senate majority. (The Republican state legislators passing these bills are often in gerrymandered districts, so they made their own luck.)
Anyway, as far as I can tell, people didn't change their minds that much one way or the other. Republicans got stronger because we have a badly designed system that was established as a compromise with powerful slaveowners. They manipulated that system for their own purposes. Fixing the system so that it doesn't give Republicans constant partisan advantages is how you stop abortion bans, protect refugees from brutal mistreatment, and save the planet from climate change. So it's something I really focus on.
