A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll released on Wednesday showed that half of all voters say that they are more motivated to cast a ballot in the midterms next month due to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion.

The controversial decision “is continuing to motivate some voters as half of voters now say the Court’s decision has made them more motivated to vote, up from 43 percent who said the same in July and an increase of thirteen percentage points from a similar question in May,” the survey wrote.

The poll of more than 1,500 adults conducted in late September further revealed that 51 percent of voters in states with abortion bans are more motivated to vote in the midterms, compared to 32 percent in states that protect abortion access. Overall, four in ten voters say their state’s abortion laws have made them more motivated to vote.

Meanwhile, in anti-abortion states, roughly three-quarters of Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters are more eager to vote, versus only 35 percent of Republicans or Republican-leaning voters.

Among women voters aged eighteen to forty-nine, more than four in ten say that they are more motivated to vote this year compared to previous elections, and a majority of them (59 percent) say the Supreme Court’s decision has made them more motivated to vote. Additionally, when asked to say in their own words why they are more motivated to vote, one in seven say the reason is related to the Supreme Court ruling, such as the issue of abortion and reproductive rights (9 percent) and protecting women’s rights (4 percent).

In the roughly three-plus months since the Supreme Court struck down Roe, sixty-six clinics across fifteen states have stopped providing abortion procedures, according to a Politico report. The data, compiled by the Guttmacher Institute, showed that of those sixty-six clinics, forty still offer non-abortion services, while twenty-six have closed down.

The fourteen states where abortions are almost entirely unavailable are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, abortion access is significantly limited in a fifteenth state, Georgia, where the procedure is allowed until the detection of fetal cardiac activity, generally occurring around the sixth week of pregnancy.

According to Guttmacher’s analysis, the fourteen states were responsible for more than 125,000 abortions in 2020, while more than 41,000 abortions were performed in Georgia in the same year.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Finance and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters.