Social Development and Abortion Policies in the United States: State-Wise Variations

Abstract

Women’s access to abortion has been facing challenges by the conservative sociopolitical agencies across the states for decades affecting women’s right to health, particularly of reproductive health. Anti-abortion groups across the states in the United States supported by conservative legislators of the state assemblies have been proposing, passing, and enacting laws designed to restrict access to abortion care threatening women’s empowerment, gender equality, health, and women’s rights. Objectives of this study are to identify major indicators of social development and evaluate their effects on variations in abortion policies across the states in United States. Utilizing the social development perspective, this study measures the cumulative effect of sociopolitical and economic variables on abortion policy scores of the states using discriminant analysis and One-way ANOVA. Independent variables of this study are the state’s 2020 presidential election outcome, teen (15–19) birth rate, prevalence of women (15–44) without health insurance, prevalence of female poverty, availability of abortion in the state, and enrollment of women in higher education. As hypothesized, the state’s endorsement in the presidential election was identified as a predictor of the state’s abortion policy attribute and the extent of abortion law being neutral, supportive, or restrictive. The study found all six independent variables statistically significant and influencing the dependent variable, abortion policy score of states placing them either in the restrictive, neutral, or supportive group. It is evident from the findings that without the support of liberal voters, change in the abortion policies through state legislatives would be difficult. Our result suggests continuing advocacy for reproductive rights particularly during the electoral campaigns to make abortion laws supportive across the states.