Iowa Poll: Majority of Iowans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases

Stephen Gruber-Miller
Des Moines Register

© Copyright 2021, Des Moines Register and Tribune Co.

A majority of Iowans say abortion should be legal, an 8 percentage point increase since 2020, a new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.

Fifty-seven percent of Iowans say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while 38% say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, and 5% aren't sure. The last time the question was asked, in a March 2020 Iowa Poll, 49% said abortion should be legal in all or most cases and 45% said it should be illegal in all or most cases.

The latest poll of 805 Iowa adults was conducted Sept. 12-15 by Selzer & Co. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The support for legal abortion breaks down into 20% of Iowans who say it should be legal in all cases, while 36% say it should be legal in most cases. Meanwhile, the opposition is made up of 25% who say abortion should be illegal in most cases and 13% who say it should be illegal in all cases.

“I just believe it’s a woman’s right,” said Kathy Cunningham, a 58-year-old Democratic poll respondent from Des Moines. “And a lot of the circumstances are extraordinary circumstances. It’s not black and white.”

More:Iowa abortions climbed 14% in 2020, after jumping 25% the previous year, new state data show

Cunningham, who works for Des Moines Public Schools, said she's worried about abortion rights being taken away and feels like men are "trying to control women again" with restrictive abortion laws.

"I feel like we’re going backward instead of forward," she said.

Anti-abortion activists have recently scored a series of legal and legislative victories. In Texas, lawmakers passed a law effectively banning abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, about six weeks into a pregnancy and often before women know they’re pregnant. Private citizens are deputized to enforce the ban through civil lawsuits — a mechanism intended to help the law avoid being struck down in court as unconstitutional.

In early September, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block that law.

More:Biden administration is suing Texas over its abortion ban. What's next? Will the Supreme Court take it up?

In December, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case challenging Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. Republican elected officials across the country have filed briefs in that case, asking the court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. That includes Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa's Republicans in Congress: U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst and U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Randy Feenstra.

In Iowa's Legislature, Republican lawmakers have passed numerous abortion restrictions and are working to pass a constitutional amendment saying that the Iowa Constitution does not secure a right to abortion. It’s an attempt to overturn a 2018 Iowa Supreme Court decision that protected abortion rights in the state.

Susan Venem, a 67-year-old Republican poll respondent from Jesup, said she believes abortion should be illegal in most cases.

“A baby is a baby,” she said. “When it has a heartbeat, it’s alive.”

More:Iowa Legislature approves anti-abortion constitutional amendment. Legislature must pass it again before it goes to voters.

Venem, a retired debt collector, said she understands exceptions for instances where giving birth could cause a woman to lose her life, or when a pregnancy is the result of rape.

“But if you choose to get pregnant, then you have a responsibility to care for that child,” she said. “Some people shouldn’t be parents, but that doesn’t mean that baby doesn’t have a right to live.”

While 88% of Democrats say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, just 30% of Republicans agree. Sixty-five percent of unaffiliated voters support abortion in most or all cases. 

There’s also a gender split, with 63% of women saying abortion should be legal, compared to 49% of men. And there's a geographic divide: 66% of city dwellers and 67% of suburbanites say abortion should be legal, while just 46% of those who live in rural areas agree. 

Four out of five Iowans who have no religious affiliation say abortion should be legal, compared to 52% of Catholics, 49% of Protestants and 31% of evangelicals.

About this poll

The Iowa Poll, conducted September 12-15, 2021, for the Des Moines Register and Mediacom by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, is based on telephone interviews with 805 Iowans ages 18 or older. Interviewers with Quantel Research contacted households with randomly selected landline and cell phone numbers supplied by Dynata. Interviews were administered in English. Responses were adjusted by age, sex and congressional district to reflect the general population based on recent American Community Survey estimates.

Questions based on the sample of 805 Iowa adults have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Questions based on the subsample of 620 likely voters in the 2022 midterm election have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points. This means that if this survey were repeated using the same questions and the same methodology, 19 times out of 20, the findings would not vary from the true population value by more than plus or minus 3.5 percentage points or 3.9 percentage points, respectively. Results based on smaller samples of respondents — such as by gender or age — have a larger margin of error.

Republishing the copyright Iowa Poll without credit to the Des Moines Register and Mediacom is prohibited.

Dive into more details of the latest Iowa Poll 

Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on Twitter at @sgrubermiller.