It’s been nearly a year since a Teton County judge heard final arguments in the case challenging Wyoming’s two abortion bans. Both bans are on hold as the state awaits her decision.
Meantime, sentiments regarding abortion have largely stayed the same in Wyoming, according to a new survey by the University of Wyoming’s School of Politics, Public Affairs, and International Studies in partnership with the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center.
Comparing this year’s responses to the last four decades of Wyoming election-year surveys, the rate of respondents who want all abortions to be illegal — 10.5% in the latest survey — has remained fairly steady.
More than half of Wyomingites preferred some form of limitation on abortion with 31% opting for exceptions in the case of rape, incest or when a women’s life is in danger, the poll found. Another 19.7% chose an option that said: “The law should permit abortion for reasons other than rape, incest, or danger to the woman’s life, but only after the need for the abortion has been clearly established.”
Those rates have remained about the same for the last two decades, since the survey questions changed.
The rate of those who said all abortions should be allowed as a personal choice — 38.8% this year — has also held steady since around 2004.
The latest results show public sentiment hasn’t changed much, even amid the Wyoming Legislature’s pursuit of new abortion restrictions in the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Politics vs opinion
While opinions about abortion have remained largely steady over time, politics in Wyoming have not, hedging more to the right in recent years.
Before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, lawmakers passed a “trigger” law in early 2022 that would’ve banned most abortions if the decades-old Supreme Court precedent was overturned. When Roe fell, the governor certified the ban, but a few days before it was set to go into effect, a group of doctors, women, an advocacy group and a clinic filed a lawsuit. In response, 9th District Court Judge Melissa Owens stalled its enforcement.
Then, in early 2023, lawmakers passed two more bans: another near-total ban to replace the trigger ban, and a first-of-its-kind ban on using medications to induce abortion. While the near-total ban initially didn’t include exceptions for rape or incest, lawmakers added those exemptions.
Ultimately, the bans passed with about 70% of the Legislature’s support. In comparison, the survey found 41.5% of Wyomignites supported either a total ban or one with the exemptions included by lawmakers.
About 58.5% of Wyomingites opted for legalizing all abortions or only requiring a clear need for an abortion to legally proceed.
Political divide
While overall opinions remained stagnant in Wyoming, how Republicans and Democrats responded to the survey has changed, according to an analysis by UW’s School of Politics, Public Affairs, and International Studies.
“In the 2016, 2018, and 2020 waves of the survey, these two disparate groups provided remarkably similar levels of support for abortion access,” the analysis found. “Around 20 percent of both groups contended that abortion should be a matter of personal choice, and no more than about 10 percent of either group suggested that all abortions should be made illegal.”
But there were changes in 2022, the analysis found, showing that more than half of conservatives surveyed said abortion shouldn’t be allowed at all or only allowed in cases of rape, incest, or threat to the mother’s life.
“Conversely, liberals offered far greater support for the most permissive rules around abortions in the entire series, with 70 percent of respondents offering no stipulations to one’s right to an abortion,” the analysis stated.
This year, the gap has widened. About 58% of Republicans surveyed felt all abortions should be illegal or only allowed in instances of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk. The largest group, at 43%, felt there should be those narrow exceptions.
Another 21.5% of Republicans felt all abortions should be legal.
“Wyoming residents exhibit a wide spectrum of views on abortion rights, reflecting deeply nuanced and personal perspectives.”
Ryan Williamson, UW assistant political science professor
Democrats in the survey were all bunched to one side, though; 86% of Democrats stated that abortion should always be legal, while 11% felt there should be exceptions beyond rape, incest and life of the mother. Fewer than 3% felt they should all be banned or carry limited exceptions.
Independents, meanwhile, also leaned more toward making abortion easier to access. Half of independent survey respondents supported making all abortion legal and another 29% opted for establishing a need for abortion beyond exceptions for only rape, incest or life of the mother.
“Wyoming residents exhibit a wide spectrum of views on abortion rights, reflecting deeply nuanced and personal perspectives,” Ryan Williamson, an assistant political science professor, said in the UW press release.
Methodology
The Survey & Analysis Center and university ran the survey from late September through late October, collecting 739 responses from “randomly selected Wyoming residents,” though gender and age groups from all counties were proportionally represented, according to UW.
This only included noninstitutionalized adults, the survey stated, and involved calling both cell phones and landlines.
The margin of error for survey questions was plus or minus 3.6%.
“The final survey data have been weighted to reflect the actual population distribution in Wyoming on gender, age, county of residence, party affiliation and education,” UW stated.
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