Reexamination of Religious Influences on Abortion Attitudes

Abstract

Prior research indicates religious variables and moral attitudes toward sexuality powerfully affect abortion attitudes. This study addresses why religious variables are so influential for abortion attitudes. These patterns are particularly significant at present because legal restrictions on abortion are changing and the object of much controversy. This study reexamines several religious and other influences on abortion attitudes with original survey data. Demographic variables are moderately strong predictors in the sample. Religious variables, especially conservative church membership and personal piety, are more strongly associated with abortion dispositions than political variables. Sexual moralism is the strongest predictor in our data. Absence of consensus on the morality of abortion in the larger society maximizes the influence of religion on this attitude. Although attitudes toward abortion are sometimes presented in popular media as polarized, with pro-life and pro-choice activists asserting uncompromising positions on each side, we conclude that polarization does not characterize the general public's abortion attitudes. Our findings suggest instead that most persons are deeply ambivalent about abortion. Sociological factors influencing that ambivalence are discussed as well as political prospects for the controversy