Political-science professor Mark Jones tells the Atlantic that “based on past polling,” the Lonestar State’s heartbeat ban “is too extreme for most Texans.” While some other conservative governors try to follow in the footsteps of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, certain U.S. locales are working to become “sanctuary” sites for abortion-seekers.
Barbara Carvalho, director of the Marist Poll, tells the Atlantic that efforts viewed as extreme tend to spark backlash. “When legislation or court decisions move towards the conservative, right-to-life extreme, the middle of America moves more to keeping abortion legal,” she says. “There’s a small proportion of people who think that abortion should be illegal under any circumstance. And there’s a small proportion of people that think it should be legal in any circumstance. And everybody else is in the middle.”
