Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Attitudes Toward Abortion Among Religious Traditions In The United States: Change Or Continuity?, John P. Hoffmann, Sherrie Mills Johnson

Faculty Publications

Abortion continues to be a highly contentious issue in the United States, with few signs of abatement. The goal of this paper is to specify how variable positions about abortion across religious traditions have led to differential shifts in attitudes among their members. Based on culturally relevant events, position papers, and other religious media, the guiding hypotheses propose that Evangelicals have become increasingly opposed to abortion for elective reasons; yet changes in attitudes regarding abortion for traumatic reasons are due primarily to cohort shifts. Data from the cumulative General Social Surveys (1972–2002) are used to test the hypotheses. The first …