According to a poll released this month, support for abortion access in Florida is bipartisan.

The poll by KFF, a health policy research and news organization, surveyed women of childbearing age.

Nearly three-quarters of Florida respondents said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. This included 86 percent of women who identified as Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans.

Just over two-thirds of women said they supported a nationwide right to abortion.

For many people, it’s a personal matter, says Brittni Frederiksen, deputy director of women’s health policy at KFF. The survey found that nearly one in five women said they had had an abortion, with similar proportions among Republicans and Democrats.

“I think it just shows that abortion is a relatively common health service that people want to have access to,” Frederiksen said. “And it’s a very political issue right now, but I think it will also motivate people to vote.”

Amendment 4 will be on the ballot in Florida in November and requires a 60 percent majority. Voters will decide whether to legalize abortion in Florida until the fetus is viable, which is about 24 weeks, or until a doctor deems it necessary.

Currently, abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy is prohibited, with some exceptions.

Confusion and fear of abortion bans

As in all states with abortion bans, there is an exception in cases where the life of the pregnant woman is in danger. But this exception is difficult to define, and there are reports of doctors turning away patients with health complications because they fear legal consequences.

This could increase women’s fears about the impact of abortion bans on their health. Sixty percent of women who responded to the survey said they were worried that they or someone close to them would not be able to have an abortion to protect their life or health. A similar number said abortion bans could affect the safety of a potential future pregnancy.

The survey also revealed information gaps on abortion in Florida.

Nearly 30 percent of respondents said they were unsure about the legal situation regarding abortion in Florida. Only 18 percent know that medical abortion is still legal and 9 percent know that they can get the pills online.

In Florida, medication abortion is legal up to six weeks of pregnancy under the current ban, but the state does not allow doctors to prescribe the pills online or send them through the mail. But Florida’s criminal penalties for abortion do not apply to pregnant women, and there are websites where patients can obtain the drugs from doctors in other states.

More than a third of young women surveyed in Florida told KFF they did not know where to get an abortion or where to find information about it if they wanted or needed an abortion in the near future.

“People are confused or maybe not paying attention to the conversations and politics around abortion,” Frederiksen said. “Abortion is one of those things that only affects a certain part of the population, but this was about women of childbearing age, so that population is heavily affected.”

Frederiksen said more needs to be done to educate the public about abortion care and the latest restrictions so people can make informed decisions about their health and at the ballot box in November.

The findings come from a survey of 512 Florida women ages 18 to 49, conducted in May and June after the law went into effect in Florida and before President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign. The Florida sample is part of a larger survey of thousands of American women for the KFF Women’s Health Survey.

Floridians’ views on abortion often resemble those of young women across the country. A majority of survey respondents nationwide also support expanded access to abortion and are concerned about the impact of current abortion bans.

About one in ten women of childbearing age say they personally know someone who has had difficulty getting an abortion since Roe v. Wade was lifted in summer 2022.

Travel costs and lack of knowledge about treatment options were frequently cited as factors that make access to healthcare difficult, particularly for low-income respondents.