If the justices expect the public to embrace a 15-week limit, they may be in for an unpleasant surprise. In every recent survey, voters support Roe and reject the idea of overturning it. The numbers aren’t close: The anti-Roe side ranges from 26 percent to 32 percent, while the pro-Roe side ranges from 50 percent to 65 percent. And when the Mississippi law is pitted against Roe, the law loses. In the Yahoo! News poll, when respondents were asked about “a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, or about 3½ months,” they favored it, 39 percent to 33 percent. But when the poll presented an alternative—“The current law under Roe v. Wade forbids states from banning all abortions before around six months of pregnancy when the fetus can survive outside the womb”—respondents turned against the 15-week limit. Only 30 percent said the court “should uphold the Mississippi law and allow similar abortion bans elsewhere.” Forty-one percent chose the alternative statement: “The Supreme Court should strike down the Mississippi law and preserve Roe v. Wade.”

In the past, when the court has flirted with overturning Roe, that threat has motivated pro-choice voters to punish Republicans at the ballot box. A survey two months ago, conducted by Lake Research and Emerson College Polling, suggests that the same thing might happen next year if the court rules against Roe. Forty-five percent of Republicans and 51 percent of pro-life respondents said that they’d be more interested in voting in 2022 if the justices were to overturn Roe. But among Democrats and pro-choice respondents, the numbers were significantly higher: 66 percent and 69 percent, respectively. Democrats and pro-choicers also held a 15-point advantage among respondents who said they’d be “much” more interested in voting. (Lake Research is a pro-choice firm, but its sample in this survey was by some measures more pro-life than any other pollster’s.)