The Most Unpopular Laws in America

Nobody wants abortion bans—not even deep red states

In just the last few weeks, I’ve written about the death of a woman in Texas, the arrest of a South Carolina 20-year-old, and a bill in Wisconsin that would mandate women use a ‘catch kit’ when they have a miscarriage or abortion. Clinics are closing, maternal mortality is spiking, and the government is burning tens of millions of dollars in birth control.

As these horrors unfold day after day, there are three words that replay through my mind: nobody wants this. Nothing we’ve seen in the three plus years since Roe fell is what Americans want for themselves or their country—not the women dying, not the rise in pregnancy-related arrests, not the patients forced to carry dead and dying fetuses, not the cancer patients or abused children denied care.

Nobody wants this.

Conservatives want us to believe, against all evidence, that the country is irrevocably divided on abortion rights—with voters split down the middle. I don’t know whether it’s standard misogyny or a deep disinterest in interrogating issues that impact women, but somehow that easily disproven lie has become political gospel. The myth has flourished even among those who should know better, allowing Republicans to pretend they’re speaking for half the nation.

Here’s the truth: Abortion bans aren’t just unpopular; they may be the most unpopular laws in America.

We’re stuck in a sort of mass political psychosis: with pundits and strategists advising Democrats to compromise on their most powerful and popular issue and Democrats acquiescing—forever hedging their language and refusing to go on offense.

As a result, we’ve been left with an astonishing disconnect between what Americans actually believe about abortion and what those in power think they believe. That gap isn’t just losing us elections, but killing people and destroying families—so let’s put an end to the fiction right now.

We can start with one of the country’s most anti-abortion states: North Dakota—where the state Supreme Court just revived a total abortion ban. According to the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), the state has one of the largest shares of voters who think abortion should be completely illegal—coming in just behind Mississippi, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

That means voters should be happy with a total ban back on the books—right? Nope, not even close.

Because that supposedly “large” share of voters who want abortion entirely outlawed—the percentage that makes North Dakota one of the country’s most anti-abortion states? It’s just 12%.

If one of the most anti-abortion states in America can muster only a sliver of support for total bans, what does that tell you about how popular abortion rights really are? Just as important: if deep red states don’t want abortion banned, who does?

I’m not just talking about total abortion bans, either: all abortion restrictions are unpopular. Multiple polls show that over 80% of Americans don’t want the government regulating abortion at all, and that voters are increasingly supportive of abortion throughout pregnancy. These aren’t just national trends; we’re seeing them everywhere.

Consider Kansas—a GOP stronghold where a Democrat hasn’t won the presidency since the 1960s, and where registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by a nearly two-to-one margin. Those numbers are presumably why you have people like Ezra Klein advising the party to embrace ‘pro-life’ candidates in order to win over the state’s voters.

You can probably guess where I’m going with this: Kansas is unequivocally pro-choice. And not just because voters there overwhelmingly rejected an anti-abortion ballot measure in 2022 (though it certainly helps).

Every year, Fort Hays State University releases one of the state’s best-known public opinion polls: Kansas Speaks. This year, that poll reported that 60% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the government “should not place any regulations on the circumstance under which women can get abortions.”

I’m going to repeat that, because it’s important: the majority of Kansas voters don’t want any laws restricting abortion. We’re talking about a state that hasn’t elected a Democratic U.S. Senator since 1932—and where Donald Trump won by double digits twice. And still, a clear majority wants the government completely out of abortion.

What’s more, Kansas voters’ support for abortion without restrictions is increasing: last year, 55% of voters supported the same sentiment; in 2023, it was 51%.

And while last year’s poll reported that 65% of voters agreed or strongly agreed that “women are in a better position than politicians to make their own choices about whether to get an abortion,” 72% of respondents said the same thing this year.

And it’s not just Kansas.

Let’s go back to North Dakota: when voters were asked about a 6-week abortion ban in 2023, only 44% supported the law. By the following year, that already-minority support dropped to just 38%.

Even more interesting? While 71% of Republicans supported a 6-week ban in 2023, that number shrunk to just 54% by 2024.

Again, this is a state with some of the most anti-abortion voters in the country, and Republicans can barely eke out majority support for a 6-week ban within their own party.

I could go on: In Tennessee—a state where the abortion ban didn’t even have an exception for women’s lives—a majority of voters now identify as pro-choice. And in Mississippi, 45% of Republican primary voters—people who should be part of the hardcore anti-abortion electorate—wanted to repeal the state’s ban just a year after it took effect.

The longer these laws are on the books, the more unpopular they get.

We know why: voters are watching maternity wards shutter, OBGYNs flee, and yes—women suffer and die. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it as many times as is necessary: it won’t be long before every single person in the country is touched by an abortion ban.

I’m reminded of an older gentleman who approached me after a recent speech: he told me that his daughter had moved to Florida not realizing she was pregnant—when she miscarried, the hospital refused to treat her. She spent five days getting sicker and sicker, begging for help. Finally, her terrified boyfriend put her—bleeding and in pain—on a plane back home. The doctor who finally treated her was shocked she survived.

It’s not unusual for people to share stories like this with me; what is unusual is that this father hadn’t come to my speech because he was interested in abortion rights. He was there running the lights.

These bans are destroying people’s lives. The longer they exist, the more people—the more voters—they harm. And the more powerful the issue becomes for Democrats.

Conservatives know this. There’s a reason they’re putting such extraordinary effort into hiding maternal mortality data—disbanding state committees and stacking them with anti-abortion activists. (Just today, the Charlotte Lozier Institute published a policy paper about why Americans shouldn’t trust maternal death data.) In case that doesn’t work, anti-abortion groups are running messaging campaigns to blame pro-choicers for women’s deaths and suffering—saying we’ve scared doctors out of providing care.

In fact, everything conservatives are doing right now on abortion is a direct reaction to the reality of pro-choice America.

It’s why they’re trying to ban mifepristone by focusing on women’s ‘health’, ‘coercion’—even water safety. Anything but abortion itself. It’s why Republicans won’t use the word ‘ban’ anymore, and why anti-abortion candidates are starting to sound downright prochoice—even claiming the label. You know how crisis pregnancy centers will set up shop next to a real clinic and use a near-identical name to trick women? Republicans have adopted that strategy for their anti-abortion ballot measures, knowing they can’t pass the amendments with the truth.

Donald Trump can certainly see the writing on the wall; he hasn’t uttered a word on abortion in months. That’s about as big of a tell as it gets.

All of which is to say: Republicans know Americans overwhelmingly support abortion, and are acting accordingly. Why aren’t we?

Sure, Democrats ran on the issue in 2022 and 2023—but they campaigned as pro-choice, not pro-abortion. There’s a difference.

It’s not enough to remind voters that the country supports abortion; we need to hammer home that nobody wants this. The GOP clings to words like ‘consensus’ and insists the country is evenly divided because they know that public perception shapes elections. Americans care what their friends and neighbors believe: the more people understand that abortion is popular, the more likely they are to embrace it—publicly and at the ballot box.

It’s not enough to simply get off the defensive: Democrats need to articulate a proactive abortion-rights message—one that rejects the trap of debating when the government should intervene in pregnancy, and instead asserts the simple truth most voters already believe: the government shouldn’t be involved at all.

This needs to happen now. Republicans are already gaslighting Americans about ever-more radical policies: they’re attacking birth control, the right to travel, and women’s ability to work outside of the home. Over a dozen states have introduced bills to punish abortion patients with murder charges.

How long do you think it will take before they claim voters are torn on those issues, too?

If Democrats really want to meet voters ‘in the middle’ on abortion, they’d get a lot more pro-abortion a lot faster. Instead of watering down their rhetoric—which only makes them look weak and reinforces the myth that the country is divided—politicians should remind Americans that the GOP is passing laws even the reddest states have no interest in.

Whenever another horror story comes out, whenever another ban is passed—remind your friends, families, communities, and legislators: nobody wants this.