A majority supports abortion rights, but paying for them is tricky

Planned Parenthood, which could lose funds if the move is enacted, has immediately raised alarm bells that the administration's plan could essentially place a gag order on hospitals and family planning groups, thus limiting access to abortion services.

Support for access to legal and safe abortions has been at a two-decade high, but Americans are more split on how people receiving help from the government for insurance should be treated.

Polling done by the Public Religion Research Institute, released in April, shows that 21% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in all cases, with 33% saying it should be legal in most cases. In opposition, 29% say it should be illegal in most cases and 14% say it should illegal in all cases. A majority of Americans -- 76% -- in this poll say compared to five years ago, their current views about abortion have not changed.

But Americans are split on whether government-subsidized health insurance programs should cover abortion, even for low-income people. When asked if they support government programs, like Medicaid, providing this service to low-income women, 46% said they do while 51% they don't.

When it came to health care coverage in general instead of services offered by the government, beliefs remained about the same. Forty-three percent said abortion should be covered by insurance while 53% said it should not, with no real change from the government-funded insurance programs.

In June 2017, a Quinnipiac University Poll asked if registered voters supported or opposed cutting off federal government funding to Planned Parenthood. While 35% said they supported cutting funding, 61% said they opposed, and that attitude has remained stable since January 2017, when they first asked.

The PRRI poll also asked whether enacting laws that restrict access to abortion should be a high priority or not for President Donald Trump and Congress. A majority -- 52% -- said it should be a low priority, with 18% saying "the highest priority." The rest, 22%, said it should be "high, but not the highest."

A Fox News poll done in March found the majority of Americans viewed Planned Parenthood favorably -- 58% -- while only 34% said they thought of the organization as unfavorably, 24% strongly so. Planned parenthood has the highest unfavorable numbers among Republicans (60%), Donald Trump voters (59%), and white Evangelicals (57%). It's highest favorability is among liberals (86%), Hillary Clinton voters (84%) and Democrats (81%).