Sociology Now, Census Update

WHAT DOES AMERICA THINK? 415

CRITICAL THINKING|DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Why do you think almost 10 percent of the population still thinks interracial marriage
   should be illegal, including 9 percent of black respondents?


2. Part of doing sociology is placing things in historical context. What historical changes have
   taken place in the past 30 years that might explain how views toward interracial marriage
   have changed?

12.2 Attitudes toward Abortion

These are actual survey data from the General Social Survey, 2004.

1.Do you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal

abortion if the woman’s own health is seriously endangered by the pregnancy?

In 2004, 86 percent of respondents said “yes,” and 14 percent said “no.” These

results are almost identical to 1972 responses. The percentage of respondents say-

ing “yes” peaked in 1991 at 91.5 percent.

2.Do you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal

abortion if she is married and does not want any more children?In 2004, 41.8

percent of respondents said “yes,” and 58.2 percent said “no.” The percentage of

people saying “yes” peaked 1994 at 48 percent, but otherwise, the data were

almost identical to 1972, and attitudes have remained pretty steady since then.

3.Do you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal

abortion if the family has a very low income and cannot afford any more chil-

dren?The responses from 2004 showed 41 percent of respondents saying “yes” and

59 percent saying “no.” The response for those saying “yes” was rather lower than

1972 and again peaked in 1994.

4.Do you think it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal

abortion if she became pregnant as a result of rape?In 2004, 76.2 percent of

respondents said “yes,” and 23.8 percent said “no.” The response for those saying

“yes” was lower than it was in 1972 and peaked in 1991.

CRITICAL THINKING|DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What do you think lies behind the variation of responses in approval toward abortion based
   on the reason for abortion? The highest approval was for the pregnant woman’s health, next
   for rape victims, lower for married women who do not want children, and lowest for women
   who want to abort because they are poor. What societal values does this ranking reflect?


2. Why do you think the results break down by gender the way they do?

3 Go to this website to look further at the data. You can run your own statistics and crosstabs
here: http://sda.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/hsda?harcsda+gss04.

REFERENCES:Davis, James A., Tom W. Smith, and Peter V. Marsden. General Social Surveys
1972–2004: [Cumulative file] [Computer file]. 2nd ICPSR version. Chicago, IL: National Opinion Research
Center [producer], 2005; Storrs, CT: Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, University of Connecticut;
Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research; Berkeley, CA: Computer-Assisted
Survey Methods Program, University of California [distributors], 2005.