A new report from The Pro-Life Generation’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement found that support for abortion at Christian schools increased by 19.82% since 2022, when the Supreme Court Roe v Wade. Since 2024, that support has increased by nearly 38.63%.
According to The Pro-Life Generation’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement, it investigated 725 Christian colleges and universities across the U.S. This review covered public materials, resources, partnerships and student-facing programs to identify ties to Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides abortions and other reproductive healthcare services.
“Through this process, our team confirmed 118 Christian colleges and universities with active ties to the abortion industry,” said the report. “Once notified, eight schools addressed these connections.”
Multiple polls also show that support for abortion in the U.S. is strong following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision that overturned Roe’s protections for the procedure and reduced access to it. Even as clinics closed and states enacted “trigger” bans on abortion, Audacy reported in 2024 that the number of abortions in the U.S. were actually increasing.
Last May, Gallup reported that 31% of Americans believed abortion should be legal “under any circumstances,” compared with 13% saying it should be illegal in all circumstances and 55% who said it depends on the circumstances. In June, the Pew Research Center reported that 63% of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. AP-NORC poll results released in July showed that 64% said abortion should be legal in all (25%) or most (38%) cases, while just 36% said it should be banned in all (9%) or most (27%) cases.
“Partisan differences persist on whether abortion should be lawful or not,” AP-NORC said at the time. It added that 85% percent of Democrats say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 59% of Republicans think it should be illegal in all or most cases. Gallup’s polling found that “the public leans more toward viewing abortion as morally acceptable (49%) than morally wrong (40%) and toward self-identifying as pro-choice (51%) than pro-life (43%).”
Meanwhile, Pew noted that views on abortion significantly vary based on religion – even among Christians – with 73% of white evangelical Protestants who said they believe it should be illegal in all or most cases. In contrast, 86% of religiously unaffiliated Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, along with 71% of Black Protestants, 64% of white nonevangelical Protestants and 59% of Catholics.
Professor Ryan Burge with the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis joined KCBS Radio last October to discuss comments Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, made about abortion. He said that Catholic doctrine doesn’t always gel with the U.S. political agenda, which can make abortion a complicated issue.
“He said that, you… can’t be pro-death penalty and anti-abortion, so you’re pro-life,” Burge said of Pope Leo. “You’ve got to be consistent across the aisle. And I think for a lot of Republicans, that doesn’t sit well because many of them are in favor of the death penalty.”
Republican President Donald Trump has signed an executive order “to end the use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion,” and has spoken in favor of the death penalty, for example. Some members of his party criticized the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s move to approve an application for generic mifepristone tablets used to terminate early pregnancies last year, but White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended it, per an Audacy report.