AUSTIN, Texas — About 6 out of 10 Texans oppose ideas for continuing a crackdown on abortion with additional laws that would criminalize use of an “abortion pill” obtained out of state and classify a Texan’s decision to have an abortion as homicide, a new poll has found.
By 56%-31%, state registered voters believe that most Texas women who want an abortion still will be able to obtain one by traveling out of state, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston.
A bare majority of Texans supports letting in-state organizations raise money to fund trips by pregnant women out of state to obtain an abortion — 51% would allow it, while 37% favor making such financial contributions illegal.
A broad cross-section of Texans supports various policies likely to be considered by the Legislature next year that would help pregnant women, babies and young children, the poll found.
Slicing the state’s electorate into eight different views on abortion, the UH poll suggested more than seven out of 10 Texans (72%) wanted more restrictions than were allowed under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision.
A similar if bigger share (77%), though, are more permissive than the “trigger” law the Legislature passed last year, it found.
Likely to take effect by the end of summer, House Bill 1280 would ban abortions unless a doctor determines that continuing the pregnancy endangers the woman’s life or “poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
In a surprise finding, almost as many Texans say they support the trigger law (46%) as oppose it (50%), the UH poll said.
The online poll surveyed 1,169 YouGov respondents who are registered voters between June 27 and July 7. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
A June poll by the University of Texas at Austin found support for automatically banning all abortions in Texas, if Roe vs. Wade was overturned, at just 37%.
However, that University of Texas/Texas Politics Project survey was taken before the Supreme Court acted, if after Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion was leaked. The UT poll didn’t specifically refer to the Texas trigger law, noted Rice University political scientist Mark Jones, director of the poll for the Hobby School at UH.
“There is no mention of ‘except if the mother’s life is at risk’ in the question,” he said of the UT survey’s questionnaire. “That would tilt the response against the Texas law since our data show that is an important exception for many pro-life Texans.”
Both the UH and UT polls are conducted via internet, not with a “live operator” over the phone.
While telephone-based and face-to-face public opinion surveys are more expensive – and made ever more difficult, because the share of Americans who won’t be interviewed has risen – some political professionals distrust internet-based polls. All the people who are surveyed have agreed to participate, they note. Such eagerness could skew results.
The UH and UT polls pick and choose from panels of participants enlisted by YouGov, a British market research and data analytics firm.
“The proof of the accuracy of the YouGov surveys, at least those in which I have been involved, is in the pudding,” Jones said.
In the 2020 presidential election, the UH poll came closest of 21 public polls to predicting then-President Donald Trump’s 5.6-percentage-point victory in Texas, he noted. And in March, a poll that Jones oversees for the Dallas-based Texas Hispanic Policy Foundation more nearly foreshadowed the scope of Attorney General Ken Paxton’s blowout win over Land Commissioner George P. Bush in the GOP attorney general primary (36 points) than some public polls, he said.
On abortion, the UH poll found:
Sixty percent of Texans oppose legislation to make it a felony to use medication abortion ingredients – mifepristone and misoprostol –obtained out of state in order to end a pregnancy up through the recommended period (10 weeks).
Fifty-nine percent oppose a law that would let prosecutors bring homicide charges against a woman who ends her pregnancy.
On average, white Texans have more restrictive preferences in abortion policies, with half (52%) preferring policies under which abortion is banned outright or permitted only if the woman’s life is at risk or if the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. That’s more than either Latino (44%), or, especially, Black (36%) Texans.
On average, Latino, and, especially Black, Texans prefer more permissive abortion policies than white Texans, with 37% of Latino Texans and 43% of Black Texans preferring policies under which abortion is permitted for any reason up through 20 or 24 weeks (or anytime if the woman’s life is in danger), compared with only 28% of white Texans.
On allowing fundraising to support out-of-state trips for Texas women to get an abortion, members of the Millennial/Generation Z age cohort are significantly more likely than members of the Boomers/Silent Generation cohort (59% vs. 45%) to support.
At least 84% of Republicans join more than 90% of Democrats to support five of eight tested policies on pregnancy and child-rearing that could be before state lawmakers next year – expanding and improving foster care, providing newborn care classes, increasing adoption services, providing pregnancy counseling and offering prenatal care.
On three other mother-and-child proposals, there’s overall support ranging from 74% to 80% but more of a partisan split: Expanding Medicaid coverage for pregnant women (supported by 90% of Democrats but just 62% of Republicans); providing free diapers, formula and baby food to low-income families (89% vs. 62%); and increasing the social safety net for pregnant women and young children (91% vs. 73%).
On some of the abortion questions, men were more supportive of restrictions than women. And backers of GOP Gov. Greg Abbott were hugely more supportive of restrictions than respondents who intend to vote for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Beto O’Rourke, the poll found.
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