The Relationship Between Abortion Attitudes and Ratings of Responsibility for Unintended Pregnancies

Abstract

Previous studies have looked at correlations between ratings of women’s responsibility for unintended pregnancies and abortion attitudes. This study presents six vignettes describing various causes of pregnancies and asks participants to rate the responsibility of women, men, and external groups on a 7-point scale. I hypothesize that less religious, more liberal individuals will approve of abortion and rate external groups as more responsible than the pregnant couple for pregnancies caused by the inability to gain access to or afford birth control products or condoms and birth control product or condom malfunctions. Results confirmed this hypothesis for the former cause. The main implication of this study is that pro-choice individuals may believe that birth control companies and the government could do more to make birth control products more accessible or affordable and that the government could do more to prevent sexual assault.