In polarized societal debates, it is often assumed that perceiving polarization leads individuals to take sides (e.g., “pro‐life” or “pro‐choice”). However, perceiving polarization can also make ...individuals ambivalent because they feel “caught in the social crossfire” of the debate. We conducted a survey study (Ntotal = 863 women) on ambivalents’ perspectives of the U.S. abortion debate. Findings supported the hypothesis that ambivalents’ perceived polarization related positively to their felt ambivalence. This relationship can be explained by their feeling of being “caught in the social crossfire”: they feel torn while also understanding both sides of the debate. Moreover, felt ambivalence was positively related to tendencies toward avoidance of the debate but also toward conciliatory efforts (e.g., to create mutual understanding between the groups). We discuss the implications of these findings for the relationship between perceived polarization and felt ambivalence among ambivalents.
"Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are closely associated with discussions about abortion; we refer to the extent that people identify with these terms as "abortion identity." Most polling measures present ...pro-life and pro-choice as mutually exclusive options, but there is a dearth of information about people who might simultaneously endorse both (or neither) labels.
We administered a survey to adults in the United States (n = 580) that included two different formats for participants to select their abortion identity: a categorical item with response options ranging from strongly pro-choice to strongly pro-life (and "both" and "neither") and two separate items (sliders) that asked people the extent to which they identify with each term. We asked participants endorsing both pro-life and pro-choice to some extent on the slider items to explain their responses in an open-ended item. We used logistic regression to examine the relationship between participants' socio-demographic characteristics and the likelihood of dual identification slider scores; we analyzed open-ended data for content and themes.
On the sliders, more than 64% of participants identified as both pro-life and pro-choice to some extent. Variability existed between people's abortion identity on the close-ended items and their response to the open-ended questions. Among those with mixed abortion identities, participants described abortion as a serious and undesirable option but reflected positively on notions of personal choice and bodily autonomy.
Our findings demonstrate complexity in measuring people's endorsement of abortion identity labels. We recommend developing more nuanced and consistent measures to assess abortion attitudes.
The United States government, under President Donald Trump, retreated from its traditional role as an exemplar of democracy, defender of press freedom and the rule of law but embraced conspiracy ...theories, virulent anti-Semites, and authoritarian regimes worldwide. Today, democracy is in crisis and is under assault and in retreat globally. The 2022 United States midterm election has come and is now history with many unexpected outcomes. The three impactful issues during the campaign that produced many upsets were abortion rights, election denialism, and threats to democracy. This editorial examines the history of abortion rights in the United States, the impacts of the Dobbs vs. Jackson ruling on the 2022 midterm election, the threats of election deniers to global democracy, the global status of reproductive health rights, and the lessons of abortion ban for burgeoning democracies worldwide.
This article introduces a political geography of abortion, arguing that abortion access is an essential but overlooked site where gendered mechanisms of state control are enforced and contested. ...Today, abortion access is currently in the midst of a significant spatial transformation: advances in technology, medicine, and activist tactics are currently changing the geographies of abortion and working to weaken the link between access to abortion and national legal frameworks. In response to these challenges to state control over reproduction, states are responding with new tactics to re-assert authority over pregnancy and abortion. However, these changes remain under-researched in the geographical literature, which tends to sustain a focus on state-law and inter-state travel. The forces currently transforming abortion access exceed these analytical frameworks: we require a multi-scalar and scale-jumping account of the relationship between pro-choice activists and anti-choice states. This article makes the case for a political geography of abortion that moves beyond a state-based framework to account for changing patterns of resistance and restriction on abortion. The arguments are developed through two cases: mobile abortion clinics at sea and telemedicine abortion technology, both of which demonstrate the contestation over abortion rights at the sub- and supra-state levels.
•Abortion access is undergoing major technological change, leading to a spatial re-arrangement of abortion geographies.•Analysis of abortion requires a multi-scalar political geography that moves beyond analysis of state law.•Abortion regulation is a site of social control where norms about gender, race and reproduction are enforced and contested.
Despite being a defining issue in the culture war, the political psychology of abortion attitudes remains poorly understood. We address this oversight by reviewing existing literature and integrating ...new analyses of several large‐scale, cross‐sectional, and longitudinal datasets to identify the demographic and ideological correlates of abortion attitudes. Our review and new analyses indicate that abortion support is increasing modestly over time in both the United States and New Zealand. We also find that a plurality of respondents (43.8%) in the United States are consistently “pro‐choice,” whereas 14.8% are consistently “pro‐life,” across various elective and traumatic abortion scenarios. We then show that age, religiosity, and conservatism correlate negatively, whereas Openness to Experience correlates positively, with abortion support. New analyses of heterosexual couples further reveal that women's and men's religiosity decrease their romantic partner's abortion support. Noting inconsistent gender differences in attitudes toward abortion, we then discuss the impact of traditional gender‐role attitudes and sexism on abortion attitudes and conclude that, rather than misogyny, benevolent sexism—the belief that women should be cherished and protected—best explains opposition to abortion. Our review thus provides a comprehensive overview of the demographic and ideological variables that underly abortion attitudes and, hence, the broader culture war.
Introduction
Although debate remains about the saliency and relevance of pro‐choice and pro‐life labels (as abortion belief indicators), they have been consistently used for decades to broadly ...designate abortion identity. However, clear labels are less apparent in other languages (e.g., Spanish). Social media, as an exploratory data science tool, can be leveraged to identify the presence and popularity of online abortion identity labels and how they are contextualized online.
Purpose
This study aims to determine how popularly used Spanish‐language pro‐choice and pro‐life identity labels are contextualized online.
Method
We used Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic models, an unsupervised natural language processing (NLP) application, to generate themes about Spanish language tweets categorized by Spanish abortion identity labels: (1) proelección (pro‐choice); (2) derecho a decidir (right to choose); (3) proaborto (pro‐abortion); (4) provida (pro‐life); (5) antiaborto (anti‐abortion); and (6) derecho a vivir (right to life). We manually reviewed themes for each identity label to assess scope.
Results
All six identity labels included in our analysis contained some references to abortion. However, several labels were not exclusive to abortion. Proelección (pro‐choice), for example, contained several themes related to ongoing presidential elections.
Discussion and Conclusion
No singular Spanish abortion identity label encapsulates abortion beliefs; however, there are several viable options. Just as the debate remains ongoing about pro‐choice and pro‐life as accurate indicators of abortion beliefs in English, we must also consider that identity is more complex than binary labels in Spanish.
Roe v. Wade was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in June 2022. The pro-choice movement, like the pro-life movement after Roe, has suffered a major legal loss after Dobbs and ...should learn from the pro-life movement's incrementalist legal strategies to slowly rebuild a constitutional right to abortion. Post-Dobbs, the pro-choice movement should pursue state constitutional level to create state constitutional rights to abortion. However, the pro-choice movement should also pursue incrementalist federal constitutional litigation in "hard cases," cases where women with life-threatening pregnancy complications are denied abortion care, to rebuild a federal constitutional right to an abortion. While a federal constitutional case for a right to an abortion may not initially translate into legal victories, such arguments can increase public support for the pro-choice movement by reframing abortion as health care and transforming public perceptions of the women who seek abortions.
This article examines the overturning of the landmark US Supreme Court decision of 'Roe v Wade', the precedent which conferred federal constitutional protection on the right to abortion. It looks at ...the US anti-abortion movement which worked for decades to overturn 'Roe v Wade' and the degree to which Australian law is vulnerable to its influence.
Abortion is often misunderstood and steeped in misinformation. Laypeople and medical professionals tend to have limited abortion knowledge. Among the public, individuals who hold accurate information ...about abortion are more likely to endorse pro-choice attitudes than individuals who are misinformed. We explored knowledge of, and attitudes toward, abortion among 142 psychologists and graduate students. Participants responded accurately, on average, to 68% of the items on a true–false measure of abortion knowledge. In addition, participants with higher levels of accurate knowledge were more likely to endorse pro-choice attitudes. Participants were especially likely to incorrectly answer items related to the prevalence, availability, and current legality of abortion in the United States. Analyzing qualitative interviews with a subset of 13 participants, we generated four themes related to knowledge and attitudes about abortion: Assuming Proficiency Despite Minimal Training, Pursuing Outside Knowledge and Training, Framing Abortion Around Identities, and Perceiving and Experiencing Consequences from Abortion Attitudes. Implications for training are delineated.
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