4. Americans Support Abortion Restrictions Roe Banned

Most Americans support gestational abortion restrictions that Roe and Casey have made unconstitutional. In striking down an Indiana abortion law, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals articulated the legal standard after Roe/Casey. Indiana’s law, they said, violated “well-established Supreme Court precedent holding that a woman may terminate her pregnancy prior to viability [24 weeks], and that the State may not prohibit a woman from exercising that right for any reason.”

But most Americans want abortion restricted well before viability. More than six in ten Americans, for instance, want abortion banned after 20 weeks. Last month Gallup asked Americans about their abortion views based on trimester, and found that only 28 percent wanted abortion to be legal during the second three months of pregnancy. Interestingly, this mirrors the policies of most European countries, which ban abortion after the early part of the second trimester.

The views of the American people on when in pregnancy abortion should be illegal are dramatically out of step with what Roe and Casey require.