Drs. Risa Cromer, Michal Raucher, and Anne Whitesell are 2025-2026 PRRI Public Fellows studying the intersection of politics, religion, and reproductive rights. This Spotlight Analysis is the result of their collaborative research conducted with support from PRRI.

Abortion discourse in the U.S. is marked by stories about religious views on abortion that do not reflect what religious Americans really think. The Christian right has politically challenged abortion for decades by wielding moralized rhetoric about religion’s innate opposition to abortion.

At a recent Turning Point USA event, Vice President JD Vance described abortion as “child sacrifice,” adding, “It was Christianity that said, ‘We don’t kill children just because they’re somehow inconvenient to people.’” His remark echoed what religious right-wing leaders have been falsely claiming for decades, which is that being Christian is consonant with opposing abortion.

Abortion rights activists have sometimes inadvertently reinforced this idea in expressing opposition to laws that seem to reflect particular religious perspectives. “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries,” a 1970s slogan that resurfaced in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, advances the religious right’s position that Christianity and abortion rights are fundamentally incompatible.

This claim, by whomever has wielded it, reinforces a story that distorts how religious Americans actually feel about abortion. It conflates religion with Christianity, religiosity with opposition to abortion, and Christianity with the political project to ban abortion. In this Spotlight Analysis, we interrogate this flawed narrative using PRRI data to flip the script on reductive rhetoric and the flawed premises on which it rests. In doing so, we offer a corrective to the myth by showing how religious Americans broadly support abortion access, even as Christian nationalists claim exclusive right to use religion in the service of abolishing abortion.

Religion in the U.S. Is Not Reducible to Christianity

In his Turning Point USA speech referenced above, and in many other public appearances, Vance promotes a view of the United States as a Christian nation, founded on Christian values, and civilized through Christianity. In fact, the U.S. is a religiously diverse country. According to PRRI’s 2025 Census of American Religion, 6% percent of Americans identified as members of non-Christian religions (Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other non-Christian religions), 25% identified as Christians of color, 28% were religiously unaffiliated, and 41% identified as white Christians.

Americans Across Religious Traditions Support Legal Abortion

Despite stories about religious opposition to abortion, majorities across most religious groups in the U.S. support legal access to abortion. PRRI’s 2025 American Values Atlas shows majorities of Black Protestants (70%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (65%), Hispanic Catholics (62%), and white Catholics (57%) believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Among non-Christians, 89% of Unitarian Universalists, 80% of Jewish Americans, 79% of Buddhists, 78% of Hindus, and 76% of people who identify with other non-Christian religions support legalized abortion. When compared to all Americans who support abortion legality in all or most cases (61%), religious Americans show strong support for abortion rights and access.

Granted, while support for abortion legality is lower among white evangelical Protestants (27%), Jehovah’s Witnesses (21%), Latter-day Saints (31%), and Hispanic Protestants (40%), they do not represent the views of all Christians. Conflating Christianity with opposition to abortion rights distorts the diversity of views held by Christians across a range of denominations.

Many Religious Americans Support Abortion Access

Some abortion foes have challenged evidence of religious support for abortion rights by arguing that such claims are held by those who are not truly religious. In Indiana, where a multi-faith group of defendants challenged the state’s abortion ban on religious freedom grounds, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus brief arguing that the defendants’ claims originated from political opposition to abortion rather than what other critics call “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

However, many religious Americans support abortion. In PRRI surveys, religiosity is determined by frequency of attendance at religious services, prayer at home, and reading sacred texts. Majorities of non-Christians—frequent attenders at religious services (58%) and less frequent attenders (81%)—support abortion. Among non-Christians (i.e., Unitarian Universalists, Jewish Americans, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims) who participate in these markers of religiosity, there are high levels of support for abortion legality. Two-thirds of non-Christians who pray (65%), 58% who attend services, and 53% who read scripture weekly or monthly believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances. Although abortion foes, like Vance, claim that religiosity is equated with opposition to abortion, this is not the case among Jewish Americans, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Unitarian Universalists.

The picture for Christians is a little more complex. While religiosity correspond with opposition to abortion among some Christian groups, this is not true for all.

For example, among white evangelical Protestants who attend services weekly or monthly, only 17% support abortion legality; among white Catholics with the same religious practices, support increases to 34%. Conversely, among white mainline Protestants who attend services weekly or monthly, 57% support abortion legality. Among similarly religious Black Protestants, support for abortion legality is even higher (62%).

Additionally, among white evangelical Protestants who read scripture, just 17% support abortion rights. Yet, reading scripture corresponds with higher support for abortion rights among Black Protestants (62%) and white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (53%).

Similarly, support for abortion legality is also remarkably high among some Christian clergy, arguably the most religiously affiliated of their religious group. Seventy-three percent of mainline Protestant clergy (United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, American Baptist) opposed the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which affirmed the constitutional right to abortion.

Religiosity among Christians, therefore, cannot be universally equated with opposition to abortion.

Altogether, this data serves as a direct refutation to the claims made by some abortion opponents that those claiming religious support for abortion are not religious.

Opposing Abortion Is Christian Nationalist — Not Christian

In Vance’s speech likening abortion to “child sacrifice,” his claim that ending the practice is “one of the great accomplishments of Christian civilization” reveals that he is talking not just about abortion and Christianity, but a nationalist ideology.

Christian nationalism Adherents (77%) and Sympathizers (63%) overwhelmingly oppose legalized abortion. However, a majority of Christians (52%) are either skeptical or reject Christian nationalist beliefs.

Among white Christians who support abortion rights, 72% are skeptical or reject Christian nationalist beliefs. Among white mainline Protestants, 75% who believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases disagree with Christian nationalism; among white Catholics it is 81%. Among Christians of color who support legalized abortion, 62% of Black Protestants, 68% of Hispanic Protestants, and 81% of Hispanic Catholics are Christian nationalist Skeptics or Rejecters.

What Does This Mean?

There are several important takeaways from this analysis.

First, abortion opponents strategically obfuscate support for abortion found among many religious Americans. This has resulted in the silencing of millions of Americans who support legal access to abortion. It also erases the religious beliefs and practices of millions of Americans whose political beliefs about abortion do not cohere with Christian nationalism — a cultural and political ideology that seeks to merge American civic life with Christian identity.

Second, these data demonstrate that support for abortion legality exists among many who are highly religious. Religious freedom claims are not just legal strategy; they represent a truth about religion being supportive of abortion legality, which is obscured by the stubborn myth pervading abortion discourse in the United States.

Finally, reproductive rights and justice movement leaders should be wary of reductive narratives about the incompatibility of religion and abortion legality. Drawing on evidence-based research on religion and abortion views can help activists reclaim the morality of abortion rights and access. Advocates may also seek allyship with supportive congregations and clergy, and recognize that many supporters of abortion are people of faith. In the U.S. today, the strongest opposition to abortion is coming from Christian nationalists — not most Christians or other religious Americans. In this light, the fight for reproductive rights and justice is a fight against Christian nationalism. People of faith and across creed, therefore, may be a missing piece to the puzzle for realizing the goals of the reproductive justice movement.