Even In a Largely Conservative State, Most Tennesseans Support Medical Exceptions to Abortion, IVF
A new poll found that most Tennessee voters support medical exceptions for abortion as well as IVF, or in vitro fertilization, treatments despite legislation that proposes to enact harsher reproductive health restrictions.
A poll of 600 likely voters, conducted in January by veteran D.C. pollster Fred Yang for the Tennessee Freedom Circle Education Fund, found:
80 percent of Tennesseans support abortion when the mother’s life is at risk
72 percent support abortion in cases of rape or incest
73 percent believe IVF should remain legal
The survey comes as roughly 70 bills addressing reproductive health are circulating in the Tennessee State Legislature, including some that, if passed, would establish fetal personhood and create civil liability for abortion care. Senate Bill 738, supported by Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon), would make abortion punishable by the death penalty, but the Banner previously reported that it will most likely struggle to pass in the Senate.
“This session, lawmakers are pushing policies that are far more extreme than what Tennessee voters support,” Monica Mackie, chair of Tennessee Freedom Circle Education Fund, said. “Our polling shows that even in a deeply conservative electorate, voters support exceptions to Tennessee’s abortion ban and strongly support keeping IVF legal. The direction of these bills moves the state further away from where most Tennesseans actually are.”
The poll surveyed 600 Tennesseans who are likely to vote in the next election. The makeup of the poll largely mirrored the electorate, with 56 percent of respondents identifying as Republican, 25 percent as Democrat and 16 percent independent. Those surveyed ranked abortion as the lowest legislative priority, as opposed to healthcare and education, which 30 percent and 29 percent of voters ranked in the first and second places, respectively. Seven percent of respondents ranked abortion as the highest priority.
While 50 percent of voters identified as pro-life, 76 percent supported that abortions should be legal in at least a few cases, including lethal fetal anomalies, when the woman is a victim of rape or incest and human trafficking.
When informed about the state’s current abortion law — which bans abortion with limited exceptions for pregnancies that develop outside of the uterus, molar or ectopic pregnancies and to prevent serious health risks that could result in the impairment of the mother’s major bodily functions — 49 percent of voters supported it.
When voters learned that there are no exceptions for pregnancies that are the result of rape, incest and human trafficking, 51 percent thought the law should be less restrictive. Thirty-seven percent supported the current law, and four percent of voters thought it should be more restrictive.
In total, 40 percent of voters knew someone who had used IVF. Seventy-three percent felt that IVF should remain legal.
