ions that may be directed against her because of such a decision. For many women, such cultural constraints create a real dilemma (Dixon-Mueller 37).
Diversity within a culture may exist within a country such as the United States, where all persons who are born and raised in the United States share many cultural values, but who may differ from one another based on diversity in religion, ethnicity, and other characteristics. Within a country such as Japan, by contrast, cultural diversity is less relevant, as the great majority of the population shares the same ethnicity and differences in religious values tend to be much less prominent than in the United States. Therefore, in a country such as the United States, cultural constraints are present that influence decisions on issues such as abortion on the basis of religion, ethnicity, and other characteristics that may define a specific cultural group within the population. When the high levels of immigration from non-European countries that have occurred over the past three decades are considered, the potential impact of such cultural constraints on decisions by American women in relation to decisions such as abortion become even more relevant.
Intellectual polarization occurs throughout American society on issues such as unwanted pregnancy, abortion rights, environmentalism, gender rights, race, capital punishment, drugs legalization and other contentious matters. Attitudes toward abortion are more complicated than simply for or against. The reason for this complexity is that abortion involves issues such as cultural norms, religious values, political orientation, ethics, morals, health beliefs, and law (Lee, Kleinbach, Hu, Peng, and Chen 131).
Ideologically, American society emphasizes human rights for every individual person. It is the definition of "individual" that leads to conflicts. When the individual is viewed as a sentient being, a woman's right to an abortion is...