Americans support abortion bans prohibited by Roe v. Wade but claim to support Roe – is media bias why?

A majority of Americans support abortion bans that would be illegal under the Roe v. Wade standard, while also claiming to oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade, multiple national polls show – a contradiction that media critics say can only be explained by the liberal slant in mainstream media’s abortion coverage.

Under the Roe v. Wade standard, abortion bans before fetal viability – around 24 weeks – were prohibited. But Americans don’t share that view.

Gallup’s long-running surveys on abortion bans shows that a majority of Americans say abortion should generally remain legal in the first three months of pregnancy, but not in the second and third trimesters.

A Harvard-Harris poll released last week found that 72% of Americans support banning most abortions from 15 weeks onward – a standard more permissive than in many European countries but still unallowable if Roe v. Wade were the law of the land.

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“The American people are much smarter than the media elites in New York and Washington give them credit for,” said Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America. “Since in 1973 when seven out of nine men decided abortion policy for every state the world has changed and science caught up with the lie of abortion.”

At the same time, Americans consistently say that they don’t support the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Fox News’ polling shows that, since Fox News first started polling the question in 2018, around 60% of Americans have consistently said they support upholding Roe v. Wade. Gallup’s most recent surveys show a similar level of support for Roe among Americans – 63%.

That dissonance in Americans’ abortion views – supporting bans on abortion while also claiming to support a standard that would disallow those same bans – suggests Americans lack a clear understanding of what Roe v. Wade required. To many media critics, that’s a clear sign that the liberal hive mind in many newsrooms is misleading the public.

Media outlets have consistently cited polling showing a majority of Americans oppose the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but Brittany Hughes of the conservative Media Research Center said journalistic lack of nuance in assessing people’s true abortion views made that a “deceptive statistic.” Roe v. Wade, she told Fox News Digital, has given supporters of unrestricted abortion a “wall to hide behind” that’s now been taken away.

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“If public support for abortion was as strong as the left and the media want to think it is and say that it is… they should have no problem with Roe v. Wade being overturned and abortion restrictions being sent back to the states, because all people would have to do and all representatives in their states would have to do in state legislatures would have to do, is simply pass laws codifying Roe in that state,” she said.

“So if public support were that strong in favor of elective induced abortion through nine months, no restrictions whatsoever… they should have nothing at all to worry about,” she said.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told Fox News Digital that abortion activists had been “gaslighting Americans for years” with the aid of the press.

“But despite what many in the media says, if you like limits on abortion, you never liked Roe,” she said. “But the media consistently publishes push polls that fail to ask follow-up questions, creating virtual peer pressure for abortion. Many in the media function as de facto abortion spokespeople, cherry-picking data to ‘prove’ that people support abortion and Roe, without explaining that means allowing abortion through all 9 months, for any reason, and sometimes with taxpayer funding. But for those of us actually talking with people who are targeted for abortion, we know there is a more complex story to be told.”

“For 50 years, abortion bullies used the courts to shut down conversation and policy debate, but things are changing,” she added. “We will have real options on how best to protect life, and the blanket assertion that “everybody” supports abortion will be tested with real policy choices.”

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The framing of abortion in the press has been a sore spot for conservatives for decades. Mainstream media outlets frequently employ the rhetoric preferred by pro-choicers, using the term “anti-abortion” instead of “pro-life” when depicting abortion foes in their reports. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough in 2015 said there was strong “built-in bias” on the issue in the media, calling it a cultural issue with journalists.

While most right-leaning outlets could hardly contain their joy over the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the mainstream and liberal media reaction to the Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade ranged from solemn to deeply alarmed.

NBC’s Chuck Todd said the Supreme Court justices could no longer be considered to be wearing black robes, but rather “red and blue” ones, while ABC’s Terry Moran proclaimed the ruling was another indication that America now has a “very, very strongly activist, conservative court.” MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace fretted, “the conservative majority on the Supreme Court has completely transformed, for the worse, the lives of all American women.”

CNN’s Brian Stelter wondered if conservative complainants might have a point about bias in the form of one of his “Reliable Sources” guests last month, Planned Parenthood news director Kate Smith. Smith previously covered abortion issues for CBS News, where she frequently drew complaints that she was biased against the right; one National Review writer even scathingly called her “Planned Parenthood’s Ambassador to CBS News” in 2020, two years before she officially joined Planned Parenthood itself.

Liberal radio host Leslie Marshall, a Fox News contributor, said there were many nuances to abortion views in the United States, and she challenged those who oppose abortion to consider the difficult choices a woman considering terminating a pregnancy faces, rather than demonizing her.

“It’s not a choice I would make for myself, but I don’t want the government, especially a group of men who don’t have uteruses, making that decision for me,” she said. “To me, that’s something that’s very private and personal between my doctor and me, my husband and me… Maybe talk to some people that have had an abortion… I don’t think people understand the severity of the decision for the person making that decision.”

Marshall called for more attention to be paid for the plight of children who aren’t adopted and improved social and health services for poorer parents.

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“I can’t stand the finger-pointing and judgment on either side of the aisle,” she said. “But I also don’t appreciate the disingenuousness, because when some people say, ‘Oh, it’s just about putting power back to the states,’ well, that’s bull. For a lot of people, their goal is to outlaw abortion in the United States, and we all know that even if you outlawed it, it doesn’t prevent abortion.”