Religious, Moral and Political Influences on Abortion Support: Role of Financial, Emotional and Partner Justifications
Religious, Moral and Political Influences on Abortion Support: Role of Financial, Emotional and Partner Justifications

Summary/Abstract: We explored how various reasons for women to have abortions shape attitudes toward the procedure while similarlyconsidering demographic variables predictive of one’s attitudes toward abortion. Participants (N = 302) read a singlevignette presenting financial, emotional, or partner-related reasons for a hypothetical woman to have an abortionthat varied in whether the reason was present for that woman. Participants completed measures assessing religiosity,conservatism, and moral foundations as candidate moderators for these effects. Despite the reason for abortions havingno effect on attitudes themselves, various effects emerged implicating religiosity and conservatism as predictive of anti-abortion attitudes. Namely, more religious men were less supportive of the hypothetical woman’s abortion decision whendriven by financial unreadiness, whereas more conservative men were less supportive of a target’s abortion decision whendriven by emotional unreadiness and partner absence concerns. This study expands knowledge of factors contributingto abortion attitudes, thus informing public discourse on this divisive topic.

• Details
• Contents