North Carolinians split on how to limit abortion, when life begins, WRAL News poll shows
North Carolinians are split over the state’s abortion laws and whether life begins at fertilization, according to results of a WRAL News Poll released Friday. At the same time, the poll shows, respondents overwhelmingly support people who want to continue using in vitro fertilization to initiate pregnancy.
The poll asked participants whether they’d tighten the state’s current law — which bans most abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy — and instead restrict abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. Respondents were split: 44% said they oppose the idea, 43% supported it, and 14% said they were undecided. The results were split along ideological lines, with more than half of Republicans supporting added restrictions and more than half of Democrats opposed.
The poll of 850 North Carolina adults, conducted between March 6 and March 9 in partnership with SurveyUSA, had a credibility interval of 4.1 percentage points. A credibility interval is similar to margin of error but takes into account more factors and is considered by some pollsters to be a more accurate measurement of statistical certainty.
The results stand apart from other polls that asked people when abortion should be restricted, said David McLennan, director of the Meredith College Poll in Raleigh.
McLennan said a significant percentage of North Carolinians have opposed the idea of tightening the state’s abortion laws at all. A 2022 WRAL poll found that 55% of respondents wanted lawmakers to leave the state’s abortion laws alone or to loosen them.
The latest WRAL poll also asked North Carolinians if they’d support a law that states life begins at fertilization. Respondents were split 41% in favor of the idea and 41% against it, with 18% undecided.
“That really did surprise me,” McLennan said of the results to the fertilization question. “Because in the history of abortion polling, that has been a minority position — that life begins at fertilization.”
Despite 41% of respondents saying life begins at fertilization, far fewer want to restrict in vitro fertilization — a medical procedure often used by people who have trouble getting pregnant. The method usually involves fertilizing multiple eggs to increase the odds of creating one healthy embryo. The practice has come under the spotlight ever since Alabama’s state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos should be recognized as children and granted legal protection under state law.
Asked if North Carolina should safeguard IVF procedures, 48% said yes, 19% said no and 33% said they were undecided.
The results come eight months ahead of the general election, when reproductive rights are expected to be a top issue for many voters — especially women and voters who consider themselves “very liberal,” the poll found.
Democrats have campaigned heavily on abortion rights since 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. That 1973 decision provided a constitutional right to an abortion before fetal viability, generally around the 22nd or 24th week of pregnancy.
Former President Donald Trump, the leading GOP nominee for president, has taken credit for appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Democratic President Biden, who is also seeking reelection, says he wants to restore Roe’s protections.
The court’s 2022 ruling allowed states to decide the issue, and many have implemented new abortion restrictions or banned the practice outright. In North Carolina, state lawmakers last year shortened the deadline for getting an abortion from the 20th week of pregnancy to the 12th week of pregnancy, while still allowing for some exceptions.
The issue is front and center in North Carolina’s governor’s race.
Lt. Governor Mark Robinson, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, has referred to abortion as murder and said he wants to ban abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, with exceptions. In his campaign announcement speech in April, Robinson said he wanted to tighten abortion restrictions. “We need to do things to ensure that North Carolina is known as a destination state for life,” he said “We need common sense legislation to prevent abortions after a heartbeat is detected.”
Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, opposes the current 12-week law and wants to expand abortion access. He has promised to veto any attempts by the legislature to further restrict abortions.
McLennan said he expects Stein to specifically target women and political moderates with his abortion messaging. Women and unaffiliated respondents were most resistant to ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, with 33% of each demographic saying they “strongly” opposed it, the WRAL News poll showed.
“We know that this is gonna be a close gubernatorial election, and anything that can put a wedge between Lieutenant Governor Robinson and those two groups [women and independent voters] certainly helps the Stein campaign,” McLennan said.
Respondents were also divided by political party and by education. While 62% of Trump supporters said they favor a ban on abortions after six weeks, 60% of Biden supporters said they oppose it.
Getting more conservative?
Americans have consistently said they believe abortion should be legal in the first three months (or about 12 weeks) of pregnancy. A number of factors could have influenced the higher-than-normal support for a more strict limit, experts told WRAL.
Respondents might not have known about the implications of banning abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, said Karlyn Bowman, a polling analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. That mark is only halfway through the first trimester — and before some women even know they’re pregnant. “I wonder how much Americans really know about what six weeks is in the context of a pregnancy,” Bowman said.
Conservative voters may also be responding to Republican Party leaders, said Janine Parry, director of the Arkansas Poll at the University of Arkansas.
Robinson, who has acknowledged paying for an abortion in 1989, has been a vocal opponent of the procedure. Many other southern states have near-total bans on abortion.
“If Republican opinion leaders are talking about how abortion regulation needs to be stricter … [Republicans] will double down on that,” Parry said.
Regulating fertilized eggs
In response to the Alabama ruling on frozen embryos, many Alabama fertility clinics stopped performing in vitro fertilization. Medical professionals worried that they could be prosecuted for how they handled fertilized eggs that went unused. Alabama state lawmakers later passed a new law protecting in vitro fertilization.
The WRAL poll mentioned Alabama’s court ruling when asking respondents if North Carolina’s law should also state that life begins at fertilization. Support for defining life at fertilization surprised McLennan, but the support for IVF did not. Polls have repeatedly found that a large majority of Americans support the procedure.
The WRAL poll answers suggest that some want a law to recognize life at fertilization — but don’t want that law to affect IVF. Polling experts said it’s possible some respondents don’t see a connection between IVF and legally protecting fertilized eggs.
“I don't think a lot of people really look at embryos the same way they do something that's fertilized within the woman's body,” McLennan said.
Respondents might see those positions as complementary, since both offer a path to birth. It’s also possible that respondents are concerned about fertilized eggs, but don’t want to enact their view into law.
“Americans have a long history of saying, ‘This is not something I would do for myself, but constitutionally, as a matter of American values, it's not something that I feel like I can choose for you,” said Parry, the Arkansas pollster.
Respondents might also know someone who has struggled to become pregnant — and an individual Americans’ proximity to an issue is often a powerful influence on public opinion, said Bowman, of the American Enterprise Institute.
For example, she said, American views of gay marriage changed as more people reported knowing someone in the LGBTQ community.
“Many, many Americans know someone who's tried to conceive a child through IVF,” Bowman said.
Earlier this week, North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters that the state legislature doesn't plan to target IVF in North Carolina this year; the next legislative session begins in April.
Moore also said there likely wouldn’t be any efforts to further restrict abortion access this year — but that that could change next year, possibly depending on who the governor is.
“If there’s a conversation on that, it’ll happen next year after I’m no longer here,” said Moore, who’s going into his last year as a state legislator after winning a primary election earlier this month for a seat in Congress, representing parts of the state between Charlotte and Morganton.
