Public Attitudes Toward Legal Abortion, Euthanasia, Suicide, and Capital Punishment

Abstract

Recent research suggests that public attitudes toward capital punishment are fundamentally value expressive rather than instrumental. This study explores the value-expressive basis of capital punishment attitudes by analyzing the relationships between various domains of life and the law. Logistic regression of data from the 1972–2012 cumulative data file of the General Social Survey was used to analyze whether composite variables for opposition to legal abortion, euthanasia, and suicide could predict capital punishment attitudes. Findings show that main effects of opposition to legal abortion, suicide, and euthanasia increased the odds of opposing capital punishment. Among 3 two-way interaction terms, only opposition to suicide and euthanasia was significant, and it was associated with increased support for capital punishment rather than opposition. These findings lend qualified support to the consistent life ethic framework and value-expressive basis of capital punishment attitudes.

Modern bioethical issues: Euthanasia, physician assisted suicide and abortion. Comparative study of attitudes between physicians and law professionals

“…More specifically, when it comes to bioethical dilemmas, studies have shown that people with higher education tend to be more supportive of euthanasia and physician assisted suicide compared to people with lower education. [23][24] Research findings also show that women and older people are less likely to be supporters of euthanasia and PAS, compared to men and younger people. 7,25 In the present study women showed higher levels of agreement towards both practices, whilst age played a minor role in the shaping of attitudes (the difference became more apparent over the age of 58).…”

Is the Death Penalty Debate Really Dead? Contrasting Capital Punishment Support in Canada and the United States

“…These descriptive results are in line with previous work in the United States that have demonstrated how support varies across sociodemographic groups (Soss et al., 2003). Catholics are also slightly less in favor of the death penalty, which makes sense as Catholic religious institutes contributed to the American public debate on capital punishment by putting forth the “life ethic argument” (Trahan, 2017).…”

“…The goal of this article is twofold: First, we seek to distinguish an interpretable pattern that is helpful in understanding and explaining the existence and perseverance of Canadians’ pro‐death penalty attitudes. Second, we compare whether these attitudes are driven by the same mechanism as in the United States where, unlike Canada, the death penalty continues to be one of the most prominent and controversial sociolegal issues within contemporary politics (Trahan, 2017). While there is evidence that Canadians and Americans’ basic values (most notably concerning family, religion and sexual norms) are converging (see Inglehart, Nevitte, & Basañez, 1996), the countries’ contrasting legal cultures may have affected the underlying factors that shape attitudes toward death penalty.…”

The Predictive Model of Citizens’ Attitudes About the Risks of Introducing the Death Penalty in the Legal System: A Case Study of Serbia

“…The findings of recent research represent the public's attitude towards the death penalty, in essence, as a value, not an instrumental one (Trahan, 2017). Of particular interest is the similarity, and, it seems, the contradiction, of the public's views on abortion and the death penalty, that is, the point at which strong support for the death penalty and equally strong opposition to abortion come together.…”

“…Marshall's hypothesis presents support for the death penalty as a reflection of the ignorance of its effects, and implies that support would be greatly reduced under the influence of better public awareness of the pragmatic aspects and reality of the death penalty itself, including lack of appropriate death penalty effects, racial and gender discrimination, increased costs and the risk of execution of innocent people (Trahan, 2017), while at the heart of the elaboration probability model lies the argument that new information and knowledge could have a greater impact on the attitudes of individuals who share a greater need for knowledge (Mannes & Ingaglio Jr, 2015). Nevertheless, Vollum, Mallicoat, and Buffington-Vollum (2009) found that, despite the widespread acceptance of critical information on the death penalty, there is very little likelihood of the impact of this information on support for the death penalty.…”