{"id":304500,"date":"2024-01-03T08:43:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-03T14:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=304500"},"modified":"2024-01-02T21:51:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T03:51:51","slug":"new-zealand-parent-impacts-abortion-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/new-zealand-parent-impacts-abortion-support\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand study finds that becoming a parent impacts support for abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A nine-year study conducted in New Zealand and published in 2023 found that support for abortion slowed after the study participants became parents themselves.<\/p>\n

The study, published in Sex Roles<\/a>, examined attitudes toward elective abortions (which study authors defined as the intentional termination of a pregnancy for personal reasons) and traumatic abortion (defined as the termination of a pregnancy for a medical emergency or fetal anomaly). The researchers analyzed data from 2011 and 2019, focusing on 1,266 individuals who became parents during the study. Of these, 34% were male and 66% female.<\/p>\n

Overall, researchers noted that though support for abortion increased throughout the study, that support waned after participants became parents. Per the study abstract: “Consistent with population trends, support for elective and traumatic abortion increased in the year(s) before participants became parents. After the transition to parenthood, support for elective abortion continued to increase (albeit at a slower rate), whereas traumatic abortion support stopped increasing.”<\/p>\n

\u201cOur results demonstrate that support for elective and traumatic abortion gradually increased in the year(s) before participants became parents,\u201d the study authors concluded<\/a>. \u201cFollowing the transition to parenthood, however, the rate of change in support for elective abortion slowed, whereas the rate of change in support for traumatic abortion stabilized and became non-significant [stopped visibly increasing]. Our results thus suggest that the process of becoming a parent impacts the rate at which the same peoples\u2019 support for reproductive rights changes over time, particularly in the case of traumatic abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n