Variations in Abortion Access and Perception

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

The papers on this panel all approach the topic of abortion access and public perception. Buyaker’s paper uses a longitudinal study of US adults in order to examine how public attitudes toward the role of federal and state governments are influenced by individual support for legal abortions in Texas and Mississippi. Bissonnette draws on extensive fieldwork in four US states to assess how language, knowledge and access to information impact how Latina women perceive and experience their access to abortion in a pre and post-Dobbs world. Shrestha et al. use a nationally representative survey of American adults to investigate the impact of the Dobbs decision on attitudes towards abortion permissiveness. Finally, Pullan and Gannon utilize a mixed-methods approach to explore puzzles in the rate of conscientious objection to abortion provision by gynecologists in Italy. They find that the conscientious objection rate may be significantly higher than reported—a fact which has implications both for government data integrity as well as public understanding of access to abortion services. Together, these papers fill an important gap in research about both the public’s perception of abortion and the government’s role in it.

Sub Unit

• Division 48: Health Politics & Health Policy

Individual Presentations

• Attitudes About Government and Support for Legal Abortion in the U.S. - Beyza Ekin Buyuker, Indiana University Bloomington

• Data Discrepancies: Italian Government Reports on Abortion, Contextualized - Danielle Pullan, University of Cologne; Payton Gannon

• (Mis)information, Knowledge and Policies in Latinas’ Experiences of Abortion - Andreanne Bissonnette, Western Washington University

• Public Knowledge of the Dobbs Decision and Its Reflection on Abortion Attitudes - Aakriti Shrestha, Texas A&M University; Alva Ferdinand, Texas A&M University School of Public Health; Matt Motta, Boston University School of Public Health; Alee Lockman, Texas A&M School of Public Health; Kristin Kay Lunz Trujillo, Boston College; Timothy Herbert Callaghan, Boston University

Chair

• Sorcha A Brophy Columbia University

Discussants

• Katelyn Rene Smalley

• Miranda Elyse Yaver University of Pittsburgh