Religion and the Sources of Public Opposition to Abortion in Britain: The Role of ‘Belonging’, ‘Behaving’ and ‘Believing’

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between religious factors and opposition to abortion in Britain. It provides a detailed analysis of public opposition towards abortion undertaken for different reasons, as well as general views on whether abortion is justified or not. It assesses the relative influence of religious faith using the multi-dimensional ‘belonging, behaving and believing’ framework for micro-level analysis, as well as the impact of personal salience. It also accounts for the impact of socio-demographic factors and political partisanship. It uses data from two nationally representative social surveys and multivariate estimation techniques. The main finding is that opposition to abortion is not solely based on differences in faith or denominational affiliation but that greater religious involvement or commitment, as measured by attendance at services and personal salience, and more traditionalist beliefs underpin opposition. These findings generally hold across surveys, different estimation techniques and different specifications of the dependent variable.