Brenna McMahon

In many countries, abortion is the most contested issue being publicly discussed, in part, because it has important implications for gender equality, health, family formation, politics, and views about morality. Personal religious beliefs are often seen as having an important role in shaping disapproving attitudes. However, little attention has been given to the country religious context for understanding public opinion about abortion. Drawing on ideas from cultural sociology, the anti-ascetic hypothesis, and the moral communities hypothesis, this study investigates the individual and country religious associations with abortion attitudes. Using hierarchical modelling techniques and survey data from over 70 nations, representing the majority of the world’s population, the multilevel roles of religion are investigated. Both personal and country levels of religious importance are associated with the disapproval of abortion, but there are few differences across religions. Laws allowing for abortion are marginally associated with attitudes and there is no moral communities effect, whereby overall levels of religious importance have a moderating influence on the relationship between personal religiosity and attitudes. However, individual religious importance appears to have a greater association with disapproval in richer, rather than poorer, countries, providing novel insight into why abortion has remained controversial in many countries, especially those with higher levels of economic development.