Polling Insight: Republican Women Voters on Abortion

Ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention, the party has softened its language around access to abortion in a draft version of the party platform, mirroring the stance of the former president and Republican nominee, Donald Trump. Many major media outlets report that this platform change is likely a move to reduce vulnerability on the issue of abortion in the run up to the election. In fact, this will be the first time in 40 years that the Republican Party’s platform does not call for a federal ban on abortion.

While a majority of rank-and-file Republicans oppose a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion, many support laws allowing access to abortion in certain situations. For example, most Republican and Republican-leaning independent women voters say they support leaving it up to the states to decide whether abortion is legal (60%) or a law establishing a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy (57%). But large majorities of Republican women also support laws protecting access to abortion for patients who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies (79%) and a federal law protecting access to abortions in the case of rape or incest in all states even where abortion is banned (69%).

Republican women of reproductive age, ages 18 to 49, hold slightly less conservative views on abortion policies and a slim majority support a law guaranteeing a nationwide right to abortion (53%). Similar shares of younger Republican women voters support leaving it up to the states to decide whether abortion is legal (54%) or support a nationwide ban on abortion at 15 weeks (53%). With about half of younger Republican women voters supporting each of these three policy proposals, it is clear that there is some uncertainty among these voters on how abortion access should be addressed at the federal level. Still, most younger Republican women support access to abortion in certain cases, most notably in instances where patients are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies.

Republican women voters’ views on abortion are not monolithic. While most (58%) Republican women voters identify as “pro-life,” many (40%) say on the issue of abortion they are more “pro-choice.” In addition, half of Republican women voters think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, the same as the share who say abortion should be illegal. Just 13%, or about one in eight, Republican women voters say abortion should be illegal in all cases.

Once again, views differ slightly by age, with similar shares of Republican women voters of reproductive age (ages 18 to 49) saying they identify as “pro-life” (49%) and “pro-choice” (51%), while two-thirds of older Republican women voters identify as “pro-life.” In addition, a majority (56%) of younger Republican women voters say abortion should be legal in at least most cases, including one in five who say abortion should be legal in all cases.

While two-thirds of Republican women voters say they trust former President Trump to do a better job deciding abortion policy in this country compared to President Biden, a quarter of Republican women say they trust neither presidential candidate to do a better job on this issue. Additionally, one in three Republican women voters (34%) say neither political party does a better job of looking out for the interests of women. In fact, 16% of Republican women of reproductive age say they think the Democratic Party does a better job of looking out for the interests of women than the Republican Party.

Once a cornerstone issue for the Republican Party – with most single-issue abortion voters being pro-life and Republican prior to the Dobbs decision – abortion is no longer a top voting issue for Republican voters since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Fewer than one in ten Republican women (7%) say abortion is the most important issue to their vote (compared to 13% of Democratic women voters), well behind issues such as inflation (47%) and immigration (26%). Abortion also ranks lower than inflation for independent women (10%) alongside immigration and threats to democracy as their most important voting issue. The dashboard shows how abortion ranks as a voting issue for the different groups of women voters including partisans, across age groups, and race and ethnicity.

While the issue may not be motivating Republican women to go to the polls (just 3% of Republican women voters say they would only vote for a candidate who agrees with them on abortion), the party’s overall stance – which had been largely seen as anti-abortion – may be disenchanting some voters.

The KFF Survey of Women Voters, conducted earlier this summer, shows many women voters, including Republican women, are not satisfied with their choices of presidential candidates. While Republican women report being slightly more motivated to vote compared to Democratic women, younger Republican women largely feel like the Republican Party doesn’t share their views on reproductive health issues and want abortion to be legal in most cases. While many early reports about the drafted changes to the Republican National Convention party platform speculate that they are written to appease the Republican nominee for President, these changes also, perhaps coincidentally, could help the party appeal to a key voting base – Republican women.