ion attitudes are explained by degrees of religious involvement that shape definitions of family, sexuality, and motherhood (Wilcox, 1990). A variation of this perspective has concluded that church attendance, not affiliation, is the primary determinant of women's abortion sentiments (Rossi & Sitaraman, 1988).
These different views are contained within the "female dependency thesis" (Ginsburg, 1989), which holds that women's abortion attitudes are embedded within conflicting definitions of family, sexuality, and motherhood. An early proponent of this view, Dworkin (1983), holds that women's political views are a function of their relation to family versus wage labor: Women whose lives are centered around the role of wife and mother rather than (or, with minimal attachments to) work are thought to hold positions that promote the continuance of traditional family and gender values. Thus, the more women depend on traditional nuclear family arrangements, the more likely they will oppose legalized abortion. The flaw with these studies is that they focus on women's attitudes, without reference to how the same web of social variables effect men's attitudes.
From the previous research literature discussed above, and from the two general research questions which were proposed, two testable hypotheses can be derived.
H1: Married people will be more likely to support abortion restrictions than unmarried people.
H2: Married women will be more likely to support abortion restrictions than married men.
The data used in this study come from the responses of 1,481 adult Americans selected as a representative sample of the nation in 1988. The General Social Survey (GSS) is conducted regularly by the National Opinion Research Center in Chicago. The GSS has been an ongoing survey conducted since 1972. Respondents for the survey are chosen by use of multistage probability sampling, in which a random sample of cities is chosen, th...