Continuity and Change in Attitudes Toward Abortion: Poland and the United States

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2005

Publication Title

Politics & Gender

Issue

2

First page number:

297

Last page number:

317

Abstract

In this study, we seek to describe and explain changes in mass abortion attitudes in Poland and the United States. Both countries exhibit modest, but significant, declines in support for legal abortion during the 1990s and early years of the twenty-first century. When compositional, structural, and period effects are estimated separately, both countries exhibit strong pro-life period effects beginning in the late 1990s. In Poland, compositional effects exert pro-choice pressure but are counteracted by strong pro-life structural effects. By contrast, compositional effects in the United States are rather weak, but strong pro-choice structural effects are offset by pro-life period effects. The latter result is attributed to strategic framing of the abortion issue by pro-life elites.

Keywords

Abortion; Abortion--Attitudes; Poland; Pro-life movement; United States

Disciplines

American Politics | Comparative Politics | Political Science | Women's Health | Women's Studies

Language

English

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