Overwhelming majority of AAPI adults in new poll support legalized abortion

by Cheyanne M. Daniels - 03/21/24 8:51 AM ET

Joe Raedle / Getty Images
File – People march together to protest the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health case on June 24, 2022 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A new poll has found that a majority of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) adults in the United States are highly supportive of legal abortion.

The poll from AAPI Data and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that nearly 8 in 10 of AAPI adults said they think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and three quarters said Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortions.

The poll comes at a critical time in the battle over abortion rights. After the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the legislation protecting the right to abortion, 14 states have made abortion illegal in all cases.

Nearly 6 in 10 AAPI adults surveyed said they don’t want Congress to pass a law protecting states’ rights to set their laws on abortion. Only 14 percent support a nationwide abortion ban.

AAPI adults’ support of abortion is higher than the general U.S. adult population’s support for the procedure. According to a previous AP-NORC poll, 64 percent of U.S. adults said they thought abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Only 6 in 10 said Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access.

The new poll also found that 55 percent of AAPI adults trust Democrats on abortion policy, compared to only 12 percent that trust Republicans.

Most of the state restrictions and bans that have taken place have occurred in Republican-led legislatures.

But even among party breakdown, AAPI adults are more likely to support abortion.

More than half of AAPI Democrats are likely to support legal abortion without any limits in any case, compared to 40 percent of Democrats overall.

Fifty-seven percent of AAPI Republicans said abortion should be legal in at least some cases, compared to only 38 percent of Republicans in general.

Fifty-one percent of AAPI Republicans said Congress should pass a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide, compared to only 32 percent of Republicans overall.

AP-NORC’s poll of 1,172 U.S. AAPI adults was conducted from Feb. 5-14. The margin of sampling error is 3.9 percentage points.