State Abortion Policies and Public Preferences

Does state-level governance better reflect citizen views than policies made at the national level? The US Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned Roe vs. Wade and devolved abortion regulation to the states. Gabor Simonovits and colleagues investigated whether this decision led to policies that were more representative of public opinion at the state level than during the period when abortion was legal nationwide. Using surveys of over 6,000 Americans, the authors first estimated the maximum gestational age at which the average resident of each state believed abortion should be permitted (excluding cases where the woman was the victim of rape or incest, where the health of the woman is endangered, or where there is a risk of serious defects in the fetus). The authors then compared these estimates to state-level policy in each state just prior to Dobbs being argued and two years later. Pre-Dobbs, policies were more permissive than average preferences nationwide. After Dobbs, a bimodal situation emerged, in which policies were on average more permissive than state residents preferred in Democrat-leaning states, while policies were more restrictive than state residents preferred in Republican-leaning states. According to the authors, rather than making policies more reflective of public preferences, devolution to the states has sharpened policy polarization across states.