New research sheds light on parenthood’s impact on abortion views

A 9-year-long study in New Zealand examined attitudes towards elective and traumatic abortion in the years before and after individuals became parents. The study revealed that over time, attitudes towards both types of abortion became increasingly positive. However, the increase in support for elective abortions slowed after participants became parents, while the support for traumatic abortions ceased to grow. The study was published in Sex Roles.

Abortion is a contentious topic in many world countries. While many argue that the ability to choose to have an abortion is a human right, others believe that life begins at conception. Therefore, terminating a pregnancy is morally and ethically wrong as it involves taking a human life. The right to abortion has also been a topic of legal struggle for decades.

In the United States, Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal case that was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973. The case centered around a woman referred to as “Jane Roe,” a pseudonym used to protect her identity, who wanted to terminate her pregnancy but was unable to do so under Texas law. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade established women’s constitutional right to have an abortion.

However, this ruling was reversed in 2022, allowing individual states to set their own abortion laws. In the reversal, the Supreme Court argued that this ruling needed to be overturned as it was “egregiously wrong,” the arguments “exceptionally weak” and so “damaging” that they amounted to “an abuse of judicial authority.”

Study author Eden V. Clarke and his colleagues wanted to examine whether the transition to parenthood changes individuals’ attitudes towards abortion. They differentiated between traumatic and elective abortion. A traumatic abortion refers to the termination of a pregnancy due to medical emergencies or complications, such as risks to the mother’s health or in cases of severe fetal anomalies. Elective abortion, on the other hand, is the intentional termination of a pregnancy for personal reasons, without the necessity of medical urgency or health-related issues.

Free daily newsletter

The researchers noted that recent studies in the U.S. and New Zealand show an increasing positive attitude towards abortion in these populations. They hypothesized that support for abortion would gradually increase over the years, but this trend might shift upon individuals becoming parents. Parenthood introduces changes in social roles that could influence attitudes towards abortion.

Data for this analysis came from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values study, which began in 2009 with 6,518 registered voter participants. The study continued with yearly surveys of these participant until 2019. To counter participant dropout, new participants were recruited periodically, resulting in 42,684 participants by 2019.

The researchers analyzed data from 2011 and 2019, focusing on 1,266 individuals who became parents during the study. Of these, 34% were male, and 78% identified as New Zealand European, with an average age of 31 in 2011.

The study used data on the number of children participants had and their attitudes towards abortion (based on two items from the General Social Survey). Participants included in the analysis were those who had no children at one or more data collection points and later reported having one or more children.

Results indicated that the level of support for both types of abortion increased throughout the study. This trend mirrored the general increase in support for abortion in the broader population. While support for elective abortion continued to grow among parents, the rate of increase was only 75% of that observed before parenthood. Support for traumatic abortion increased before parenthood but ceased to grow after participants became parents. These findings were adjusted for participants’ gender, age, and the year they became parents.

“Our results demonstrate that support for elective and traumatic abortion gradually increased in the year(s) before participants became parents,” the study authors concluded. “Following the transition to parenthood, however, the rate of change in support for elective abortion slowed, whereas the rate of change in support for traumatic abortion stabilized and became non-significant [stopped visibly increasing]. Our results thus suggest that the process of becoming a parent impacts the rate at which the same peoples’ support for reproductive rights changes over time, particularly in the case of traumatic abortion.”

The study sheds light on the impact of parenthood on attitudes towards abortion. However, it also has limitations that need to be considered. Notably, the study did not take into account various factors that could influence the attitude towards abortion such as political views or previous experiences with abortion. Additionally, both abortion attitude measures were single items. It is possible that studies utilizing more extensive attitude assessments and taking into account other relevant factors might produce a different view of this link.

The study, “Examining Changes in Abortion Attitudes Following the Transition to Parenthood”, was authored by Eden V. Clarke, Chris G. Sibley, and Danny Osborne.