Abortion Attitudes in Turkey Across Contexts: Evidence from Scenario-Based Measures

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5. Reproductive Politics: Anxieties, Risks, and Decision-Making

Abstract

In Turkey, attitudes toward abortion have traditionally been measured using a 0-10 acceptability scale in values surveys and the importance of context in shaping abortion attitudes has long been neglected. The current hostile rhetoric of political leaders toward abortion in Turkey and the global rise of far-right ideologies, and the accompanying restrictive policies highlight the need for updated data. To address this gap, we use data from the Turkish Social Values Study, which includes three context-based questions: (1) approval of abortion for an unmarried woman, (2) approval of abortion for a married couple, and (3) approval of abortion when a woman’s health is at risk. Using these three scenario-based measures, we first compare responses descriptively to illustrate how abortion attitudes vary by context, and then assess their associations with political ideology, religiosity, and other socio-demographic characteristics through binary logistic regression models. The findings show that attitudes towards abortion in Turkey vary significantly depending on the context. While approval is very high when the mother's health is at risk, society is almost divided in two when the reason is not wanting a child. Religiosity and political ideology strongly shape attitudes in all three scenarios, and moral scrutiny appears to be particularly harsh in the context of non-marital relationships. These results reveal that measuring attitudes towards abortion using a single general scale obscures the nuances within public opinion.

Authors

• Ladin Toplu, Emory University

• Ceylan Engin