Confidence in the Supreme Court fell to its lowest point in at least 50 years in 2022 in the wake of the Dobbs decision that led to state bans and other restrictions on abortion, a major trend survey shows.

The gap between Democrats and Republicans on support for abortion rights in 2022 was also the widest on record, according to the General Social Survey. The long-running and widely respected study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago measures trust in the court since 1973, the same year Roe v.

S

. Wade legalized abortion nationwide.

In the 2022 survey, only 18% of Americans said they ha

i.e

high confidence in the court, up from 26% in 2021, and 36% said they barely have one, up from 21%. another 46%

in the most recent research

said they ha

i.e

just some confidence

.in the most recent survey.

The drastic change was centered among women, Democrats and those who say a woman should be able to have an abortion if she wants to for any reason, the survey found.

Roe vs. Wade overturned by Supreme Court

Only 12% of women said they ha

i.e

high confidence in the court in 2022, up from 22% a year earlier and down from 32% in 2018. Confidence among Democrats fell from 25% a year earlier to 8% in 2022. And among those who think abortion should be available for a woman who wants one for any reason, confidence in the court fell from 25% to 12%.

But even among Republicans, confidence has slipped somewhat

I

several years in a court dominated by Republican-appointed conservative judges. Twenty-six percent said they ha

i.e

high confidence in the court, from 31% in 2021 and from 37% in 2018.

The research will be conducted over several months using in-person and online interviews. Most of the interviews were conducted after the court’s conservative majority issued the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe in late June, and all were conducted after a draft of the decision was leaked seven weeks earlier.

Support for widely available abortion hasn’t changed substantially between 2021 and 2022, but the poll shows support for widely available abortion has increased since 2016, when only 46% said abortion should be available if a woman needs it for any reason therefore a will, and 54% said it shouldn’t. In the new survey, slightly more say it should be available than it shouldn’t be, 53% to 47%.

Judge Clarence Thomas says the abortion leak has changed the Supreme Court

The difference is driven by skyrocketing support for abortion rights among Democrats, while Republican support is at or near a 50-year low. The 77%-28% split between Democrats and Republicans in their support for abortion rights is the largest ever partisan split on the issue.

A large majority of Americans said they believe a woman should be able to have an abortion if her own health is at risk if there is a strong

chance change

of a serious abnormality in the baby or if the pregnancy is the result of rape.

Several states now prohibit abortion, without exception in cases of rape or incest. The Mississippi ban has an exception for rape, but not for incest.

The General Social Survey has been conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago since 1972. The sample size for each annual survey ranges from about 1,500 to about 4,000 adults, with margins of error between plus or minus 2 percentage points and plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The most recent survey was conducted from May 5, 2022 through December. 20, 2022, and features interviews with 3,544 US adults. Results for the full sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.