Individual
Crawford, B.L., Morimoto, S.A., Jozkowski, K.N. (August, 2018) The complexity of choice: Measuring attitudes towards abortion. American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.
Current measures of abortion attitudes show that opinions have remained relatively stable for the past 30 years. However, most measures are limited to using a few equally weighted scenarios that are typically limited to dichotomous yes/no answer choices. The current project used formative data to generate a more exhaustive list of scenarios and used Likert type responses in order to generate a more nuanced view of abortion attitudes. Furthermore, we suggest that the used of an internal weighting system provides an even more nuanced view of abortion attitudes. Through both our qualitative and quantitative findings we are able to identify themes that emerge regarding differences in abortion opinions. Additionally, we show that a more nuanced measure of abortion may be helpful in understanding the gap between abortion attitudes and policies.