Orientations toward abortion: guilty or knowledge?

Students (N = 118) were classified as pro-choice, anti-abortion, or mixed on the basis of their responses to ten fictitious case histories of females who requested abortion. The distribution of participants on the abortion issue was quite similar to the results of a 1979 national survey. As expected, these groups differed on attitudes toward abortion as murder, the legalization of abortion, and the morality of premarital sex. The groups differed significantly in levels of sex guilt, but did not exhibit significant differences in levels of sexual knowledge. The results were discussed within the context of the public controversy over abortion. It was suggested that the affective messages accompanying the sexual socialization of children and adolescents may be more predictive of orientations toward abortion than the weight of intellectual arguments regarding the rights of the fetus, the point at which a fetus becomes viable, or a woman's right to have control over her own body.