‘We Are Firmly a Pro-Choice Nation’: CNN’s Data Guru Breaks Down Recent Polling After Supreme Court’s Abortion Drug Decision
On Friday, the Supreme Court granted an emergency request from the Biden administration to preserve access to an abortion drug authorized by Food and Drug Administration in 2000.
The ruling lifts restrictions placed on mifepristone imposed on it by two lower court rulings in recent weeks.
Anderson Cooper spoke with CNN data analyst Harry Enten on Friday night about public opinion on abortion.
“So, what does the data show about where Americans are on abortion?” the host asked.
“They are more pro-choice than they have been in over 25 years,” Enten replied. “One of the interesting ramifications of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade was that, on the question of whether you’re a pro-choice or pro-life. Before 2022, it was a fairly hard fought question, right? Pro-choice was slightly ahead of pro-life.”
Last year, the Supreme Court overturned Roe and with it, a constitutional right to abortion in its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
“But look what happened in 2022,” Enten continued as a graphic appeared showing 58% of Americans say they are pro-choice, as opposed to the 39% who are pro-life, according to an average of polls. “Pro-choice is now up 20 points on the pro-life question. And this to me is important because this was one of the anti-abortion activists’ best questions, right? It was one of the questions that tended to suggest we were a 50-50 nation. But on this question now, we are no longer a 50-50 nation. We are firmly a pro-choice nation, a pro-abortion rights nation.”
Enten pointed to another poll, this one indicating confidence in the Supreme Court has waned among Americans.
“What we saw was that following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we saw that this confidence in the Supreme Court had dropped to its lowest level ever – over 50 years [of data],” he said. “Gallup’s measuring, you know, it used to be in the sixties, the seventies, in 1972. And then we’ve seen this sort of steady decline over the last decade, especially over the last few years and now less than 50% of Americans have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the Supreme Court.”
Watch above via CNN.
