ABSTACT

Years ago, when an unmarried woman accidentally became pregnant, she would disappear until the “issue” was resolved. Now, some stigmas associated with pregnancy decisions still continue. While data has suggested that the opinions and influence of others are important to a woman in making choices about her pregnancy (Biggs et al., 2013; Rice et al., 2017), past studies have neglected to measure factors relating specifically to the perceived fitness of parenting and the level of importance this holds in making a pregnancy decision. The purpose of this study was to show the extent to which individuals base their judgement of a pregnancy decision on their perceptions of the mother’s ability to parent. One hundred and eighteen participants completed a 173-question survey that determined “pro-parenting,” “pro-abortion,” and “pro-adoption” scores, as well as scores for “social acceptability” and “unfit parenting characteristics.” Statistical significance showed support for four of the seven hypotheses. Additional significance discovered in some incidental findings. A significant negative correlation was found between high social acceptability scores and low abortion scale scores. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between high unfit parenting characteristics and high abortion scale scores. There was also a significant positive correlation between high social acceptability scores and high pro-parenting scores. The findings suggest that there is a significant link between the perceived fitness of parenting and social acceptability of each pregnancy decision.