| Abstract: | The 1967 Gallup Poll on attitudes toward abortion legislation taken for the Population Council was studied by multivariate analysis of 9 demographic factors: age, family income, occupation of household head, race, section of the country, sex, city size, education and religion. The poll was taken in two waves that totaled 6,065 cases (after weighting for a representative sample and elimination of "don't know" and "no answer" responses). The question asked for approval or disapproval of the legalization of abortion for the four "hard" reasons: mother's health, rape, incest, or expected child deformity. The analysis revealed that age, family income, occupation of household head, race, section of the country, and sex did not in themselves have an effect on attitudes towards abortion legalization, though they sometimes were an influence in combination with other variables. Significant statistical correlations were found between approval of abortion legalization and increasing city size and higher educational level. Abortion approval also increases along a religious scale from Jewish-Protestant-Catholic. The most significant theoretical conclusion of the study was that 6 of the 9 factors were not influential on abortion attitudes and the remaining 3 did not have strong predictive-explanatory power as expected. Re-examination of the causes of abortion attitudes is needed. |
