Understanding Americans' abortion attitudes: The role of the local religious context.

ABORTION & society; AMERICAN attitudes; SOCIAL surveys; BELIEF & doubt; ABORTION laws; RELIGION; ABORTION

Although abortion became legal over 40 years ago, Americans remain staunchly divided over its acceptability. Personal religious beliefs and behaviors have emerged as some of the most important factors shaping disapproval. Despite religion's importance, very little attention has been given to how the local religious context may shape views and abortion access. Using data from the General Social Survey (N = 6922) that has geographical identifiers, we examine the role of the local religious context for shaping attitudes and the presence of a county abortion clinic. We find that as the level of county religious engagement rises, religious and secular residents alike develop more conservative attitudes. Conversely, as the county Catholic rate increases, moderate and liberal Protestants become more prochoice. While the county conservative Protestant rate has no influence on residents' attitudes, it is the only religious contextual measure that shapes the likelihood that a county has an abortion clinic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Science Research is the property of Academic Press Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)