Determinants of Opposition to Abortion

Abstract

The 1982 General Social Survey is used to analyze the hard (primarily physical) and soft (primarily social) reasons underlying attitudes toward abortion. It is found that the major factors contributing to abortion attitudes are the same for the two scales. The principal difference between the hard and soft scales is that the soft scale is more strongly related both to demographic and to attitudinal variables than is the hard. In addition, it is found that age and religious preference interact: Only older Catholics and Baptists are significantly more opposed to abortion than are non-Catholics and Baptists, controlling for church attendance.