RECONSIDERING RACE DIFFERENCES IN ABORTION ATTITUDES

Scholarly analyses of attitudes toward legalized abortion show that bl acks evidence lower support for legalized abortion than whites. Effort s to isolate the antecedents of race differences have produced mixed c onclusions. GSS data (1972-88), are used to replicate previous researc h on the structure of black/white abortion attitudes, but with women d ivided by childbearing years. The analysis indicates that black and wh ite childbearing women do not differ significantly in their abortion a ttitudes although race differences appear among older women and men.