Most North Carolinians want abortion laws to stay the same or become less restrictive, poll shows

Most North Carolinians want abortion laws to stay the same or become less restrictive, according to a WRAL News poll released Thursday. And the percentage of North Carolinians who want the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade to stand outweighs those who want it overturned.

Forty-five percent of respondents don’t think Roe should be overturned, while 30% said they believe that it should. A quarter of respondents said they weren’t sure. A plurality of state residents also don’t think states should have the right to determine whether abortion is legal.

Of the 1,100 North Carolina residents polled, 33% identified as Republican, 29% identified as Democrat and 32% identified as independent.

Forty-eight percent of poll respondents said they didn’t think states should have the right to determine whether abortion is legal, while 39% of respondents thought states should have that right. Another 13% said they’re not sure.

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Democratic lawmakers in the statehouse have enough legislators to block proposals for tighter abortion laws. But changes to Roe could affect laws in multiple states and also serve as a rallying-point for voters ahead of the midterms.

Supreme Court decisions in recent years haven’t triggered significant voter backlash, said David McLennan, a Meredith College political science professor. That could change this year depending on the scope of the Supreme Court’s ruling and the candidates on the ballot in each state.

About 40% of voters say that the overturning of Roe would make them more likely to vote, said McLennan, who is director of the Meredith Poll, which surveys North Carolinians about public issues.

In the WRAL News poll, conservatives mostly said they support overturning Roe, but a majority of self-identified “moderate” voters sided with liberals in opposing the overturning of Roe. A majority of moderates also opposed the idea of allowing states to determine whether abortion should be legal.

Support for upholding Roe was strongest among older women. Overall, forty-nine percent of women don’t want it overturned, while 27% support the idea. A majority of women over 50 years old believe Roe should be preserved. That number drops to 39% among women younger than 50.

Calla Hales, executive director of A Preferred Women’s Health Center in Raleigh, said she’s not surprised that polling shows support for granting people “full bodily autonomy.”

“We were a country founded on the idea of personal freedoms,” Hales said. “The right to decide whether or when to have a child is essential for social, economic, and racial equality, reproductive autonomy, and the right to determine our own futures. When abortion care is accessible, individuals, families, and communities thrive.”

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Tonya Baker-Nelson, an anti-abortion advocate who leads A Hand of Hope Pregnancy Resource Center in Raleigh, said she thought the percentage of North Carolinians who want to overturn Roe would be a little higher. She thinks many voters aren’t very well versed in abortion laws and suggested that that could skew some abortion poll results. “I do think a lot of people are very unaware of the facts surrounding the abortion debate in our country,” she said.

Baker-Nelson said she has spoken with state lawmakers about what they could do if Roe is overturned. “Each state should have a right to say over what they want their citizens to do when it comes to a tiny little human being in her mother's womb,” she said.

Asked what North Carolina lawmakers should do with abortion laws, 35% of poll respondents said the laws should be left alone. Twenty percent said North Carolina’s abortion laws should be loosened, 18% said they should be tightened, and 16% said abortion should be outlawed entirely.

Despite respondents’ stated support for the status quo, many supported the idea of restricting abortion after 20 or even six weeks of pregnancy. Asked if North Carolina should restrict abortion at 20 weeks, 57% said yes. Asked if North Carolina should restrict abortion at six weeks, 45% said yes and 39% said no.

Inconsistencies in polling could reflect respondents’ misunderstandings of both state law or the pregnancy cycle, according to pollsters.

People support the ability for women to get an abortion under certain circumstances, McLennan said. “When you get down into the specifics as to what that means, then you see a lot of nuance,” he said.

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Banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy would leave many women without options because they may not even realize they’re pregnant until after the sixth week, said Jonas Swartz, an obstetrician and gynecologist for Duke Health.

Doctors use a person’s most recent menstrual period to determine how long they’ve been pregnant. So, in most six-week pregnancies, “the egg has been fertilized four weeks ago, and then implanted three weeks ago, and then the woman missed her period maybe two weeks ago,” Swartz said.

So a six-week ban would leave many people with a two-week window to decide what to do about their pregnancy, he said. The window would be even shorter for women who have irregular periods or other health factors that might obscure their ability to detect a pregnancy. Some states also ban abortions before doctors have a chance to detect harmful fetal anomalies.

“Abortion is really common,” Swartz said. “One in four women will have an abortion before age 45. And I think people don't appreciate that they may find themselves in circumstances where they need an abortion. So when people say that they believe in these bans, do they want to lose the ability for themselves to make that choice?”

Ultimately, none of that influences Baker-Nelson and her group’s mission to ban most abortions.

“Tiny, developing children in the womb are worth protecting,” she said “They just are.”