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Examining Public Opinion about Abortion: A Systematic Review of Attitudes over the last 15 years

Sat, Nov 18, 9:30 to 10:50am, Marriott, Franklin 5, 4th Floor

Abstract

Over the last twenty years abortion has remained one of the most contentious issues within the United States. While attitudes about other issues like homosexuality and marijuana use have become a lot more supportive, disapproval of abortion has remained consistent with almost half of all Americans reporting that abortion is morally wrong. While a number of individual studies have been published that examine abortion attitudes, in the last fifteen years no study has assessed the state of research in this area. Public opinion is likely to have a major role in shaping the likelihood that abortion remains legal in the United States. Our research fills a gap in current understanding by conducting a systematic review of 150 empirically-based journal articles published between 2001 and 2016. The analysis, which assesses qualitative and quantitative studies, offers theoretical and empirical insight into how researchers have been examining public opinion about abortion. The results focus on the most important factors shaping attitudes, as well as the data sources, methods, theories, and journals used in producing this work. Insight into the strengths and weaknesses of this research is provided, as is direction for future research into this profoundly popular area of debate.

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