The gap between men and women on whether abortion is morally acceptable has reached record levels, as the overall percentage of Americans who believe it is has slightly decreased, a new survey finds.
Gallup released a poll documenting Americans’ views on abortion based on responses collected from 1,003 adults between May 1 and 18. The survey had a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points.
Sixty-one percent of women characterized themselves as pro-choice in 2025 compared to just 41% of men. The gender gap was the highest in the 30 years that Gallup has conducted an annual survey measuring public opinion on abortion.
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In 2024, a solid majority of Americans (54%) believed that abortion was “morally acceptable.” This year, just 49% of Americans said the same. The share of Americans who see abortion as “morally wrong” has increased from 37% to 40%.
Fifty-seven percent of women considered abortion morally acceptable in 2025, while only 40% of men said the same. This disparity in views also amounted to a record gender gap of 17 points. The 15-point gender gap between the 56% of women and 41% of men who think abortion should be legal in most circumstances ties with the gender gap measured in 2023.
“The year before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs [in 2022], Americans were about evenly divided between thinking abortion is morally acceptable or morally wrong. That followed two decades when those saying abortion is morally wrong usually prevailed,” Gallup researchers noted.
“Since Dobbs, the plurality has consistently said abortion is morally acceptable rather than wrong, including by 49% to 40% today.”
This year’s Gallup poll on abortion comes three years after the U.S. Supreme Court determined in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organizationdecision that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion. The ruling reversed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide and enabled states to enact bans on abortion.
Following the Dobbs decision, abortion became illegal in nearly all circumstances in about two dozen states. Currently, near-total bans are in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Florida, Georgia, Iowa and South Carolina ban abortions after six weeks gestation while Nebraska and North Carolina have 12-week abortion bans in place and Arizona has a 15-week ban.
North Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming currently have pro-life laws tied up in court.
Voters in a total of nine states approved ballot measures establishing a constitutional right to abortion in 2022, 2023 and 2024: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. While Nevada voters supported such an amendment, it will require a second vote in 2026 before it can take effect. Similarly, New York voters approved an Equal Rights Amendment that adds abortion as a protected characteristic under the state constitution.
Overall, the Gallup poll showed an increase in the percentage of Americans who identify as pro-life compared to last year. In 2025, 43% of Americans described themselves as pro-life compared to 41% last year. Given the error margin, the modest increase is not statistically significant. Meanwhile, the share of Americans who identify as pro-choice dropped from 54% last year to 51% this year.
Similarly, the percentage of Americans who believe that abortion should only be legal in a few circumstances or illegal in all cases rose from 45% in 2024 to 48% this year. While a majority of those surveyed last year (51%) thought that abortion should be legal under any or most circumstances, only a plurality (49%) held that view this year.
The survey revealed stark differences in views on abortion based on partisan affiliation.
A large majority of Democrats (81%), a narrow majority of independents (51%) and a much smaller share of Republicans (20%) believe that abortion should be legal in either any or most circumstances.
Similarly, 78% of Democrats, 52% of independents and 20% of Republicans said they thought abortion was morally acceptable. Pro-choice identification was measured at 83% among Democrats, 58% among independents and a record low of 16% among Republicans.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
