VALUE DIFFERENCES AND ABORTION ATTITUDES - A GENERATIONAL ANALYSIS

During the past two decades, abortion rights have continued to be one of the most controversial issues in U.S. politics. Previous research o n this complex issue has focused primarily on sociodemographic or atti tudinal determinants of abortion beliefs. This study nuns at a more co mprehensive understanding of the role of values in the formation of wo men's abortion attitudes. It is argued thar abortion attitudes, as wel l as the values which determine them, vary across generations of women . The four different age groups in this study were not found to differ significantly in their attitudes towards abortion rights. However, in dividuals from different generations seemed to base their attitudes on different values and to attach different interpretations to these res pective values.