Republicans and some in the media are eager to trot out polls showing that abortion won’t motivate voters in upcoming elections, or that Republicans’ 15-week abortion ban proposals have widespread support—and then voters keep going to the polls and rejecting Republican abortion policy. A new Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris poll shows why polling on highly specific abortion policies should be taken with several grains of salt.
The responses on this poll are all over the map, but one thing stands out in a you-have-got-to-be-F’ing-kidding-me way: the number of weeks gestation at which respondents believed pregnancies to be viable. This is a question with a real answer. It’s not a matter of opinion at all.
Viability, in the context of abortion, means the point at which a fetus could survive outside the uterus. And according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, “rates of neonatal survival to discharge at this time range dramatically from 23% to 27% for births at 23 weeks, 42% to 59% for births at 24 weeks, and 67% to 76% for births at 25 weeks of gestation. The consensus also notes that deliveries before 23 weeks have a 5–6% survival rate and that significant morbidity is universal (98–100%) among the rare survivors.”
In other words, a baby born at 24 weeks has about a 50% chance of survival. And a baby born more than a week earlier has virtually no chance of survival.
What did poll respondents say? An unbelievable 35% said pregnancy is viable at six weeks. At six weeks gestation, an embryo (it’s not even a fetus yet!) is about the size of a lentil, and it doesn’t even have developed arms and legs, let alone hands and feet or fingers and toes. It’s common for women to not even be aware they’re pregnant at that point. Another 14% and 13% said pregnancy is viable at 12 and 16 weeks, respectively. At 12 weeks, a fetus has its organs and body parts, but it is about the size of a lime—just over 2 inches long and 2 ounces in weight. At 16 weeks, it’s about the size of an avocado.
The point here is not that people are ignorant. They may or may not be, but I guarantee you that the number of people who would look at a woman six weeks pregnant and say the pregnancy was viable is zero. (They would not know it existed unless they were told about it.) At 12 or 16 weeks, the pregnancy might be visible, although it definitely would not be a good idea to make assumptions. But the vast, vast majority of people would understand that if a pregnancy is supposed to be 40 weeks, 12 or 16 weeks is way too early.
The point is that poll answers on things like this are not particularly reliable. For instance, in one 2015 poll, people who said they thought abortion should be legal only in cases of rape, abuse, and health risk were asked if they wanted Roe v. Wade to be overturned. Just over half said no. They thought abortion should be legal only in extremely specific cases … but they didn’t want the Supreme Court to open the doors for abortion to be banned. People have contradictory views—and, as the Harvard CAPS-Harris poll shows, their responses about the specifics don’t necessarily reflect the things they would realize they knew when confronted with real-life situations.
What we know is how people have voted since the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. And no matter how much Republicans pretend they just need to tweak their message, voters are saying no to Republican abortion policies.
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We talk about North Carolina non-stop on "The Downballot," so it's only natural that our guest on this week's episode is Anderson Clayton, the new chair of the state Democratic Party. Clayton made headlines when she became the youngest state party chair anywhere in the country at the age of 25, and the story of how she got there is an inspiring one. But what she's doing—and plans to do—is even more compelling. Her focus is on rebuilding the party infrastructure from the county level up, with the aim of reconnecting with rural Black voters who've too often been sidelined and making young voters feel like they have a political home. Plus: her long-term plan to win back the state Supreme Court.
