Attitudes of American teenagers toward abortion.

Numerous public opinion surveys commissioned by academicians, a presidential commission and private organizations in the 1960s and early 1970s document the growing acceptability of abortion among adult Americans. (1) None of these surveys, however, explored teenage opinion of abortion even though, as it now appears, substantial proportions of teenagers were engaging in sexual intercourse; (2) were finding it difficult to obtain medical contraception without parental consent; were contributing heavily to the number of unintended out-of-wedlock conceptions experienced by women of all ages; (3) and were, after 1970, resorting to legal abortion to terminate these unwanted pregnancies. (4)

The 1965 and 1970 National Fertility Studies (NFS) did include in their samples about 250 women younger than 20 years of age (mostly 18- and 19-year-olds). An analysis of these samples of women who were currently married and living with their husbands showed that tolerance of abortion among teenagers increased somewhat during the period, as it did among older women, with the largest increase in acceptance among black teenage women. (5)

One study which did probe the opinions of never-married as well as ever-married teenage women concerning abortion was the authors' survey, conducted in 1971, of the behavior and attitudes of a national sample of young women aged 15-19 regarding sexual activity, contraceptive practices, pregnancy and family formation. (6) In this article, we compare attitudes toward abortion among wives under age 20 from the 1970 NFS with data for ever-married women aged 18 and 19 years from our study. (*) We also compare the attitudes of the 18- and 19-year-old ever-married group with those of other teenagers in our study.

Teenagers Support 'Hard' Reasons

Although not strictly comparable, Table 1 (p. 90) presents the percent of positive responses of ever-married women 18 and 19 years of age to the two series of questions asked in the teenage survey, and the percent of positive responses of currently married wives under age 20 to the one series of questions asked in the 1970 NFS. If we assume comparability of items 4a and 4b and of 5a and 5b, the ordering of the reasons for abortion in the three sets of questions is the same. The greatest tolerance of abortion in both studies is for those indications which involve the health of the woman, pregnancy resulting from rape and the possibility of fetal defect.

For both groups of respondents, however, there is a sharp bifurcation in level of approval between reasons which are beyond the woman's control (such as those specified above), and those with a greater volitional component (including economic reasons, not being married or not wanting another child). Although more than two out of five of the respondents in the teenage survey believed abortion should be available to a very young unmarried woman, a majority of them did not believe that this was a strong enough indication for abortion. The under-20 NFS respondents were almost twice as likely as the other group of teenagers to believe abortion permissible if a couple didn't want any more children, while the respondents to the teenage survey were almost twice as likely as NFS respondents to believe that abortion should be available to an unmarried woman who wants one for any reason. The respondents to the teenage survey were also somewhat more accepting of abortion where rape was involved. On the whole, though the re are some differences, due in some instances, perhaps, to differences in wording, the similarity of views was close. In comparison to older married women, teenagers were slightly less accepting of abortion. (7)

In addition to comparing the percent of positive responses to each question in the two surveys, the mean score of positive responses over all items in the 1970 NFS can be compared with the mean score of positive items in the teenage survey. (*) Table 2 gives the mean scores (with a possible range from zero to six--the higher the score the more tolerant of abortion) for the 1970 NFS under-20 married women and the 1971 ever-married 18- and 19-year-olds, broken down by race. There is almost no difference in the total scores or in the scores of the whites. For blacks, however, the mean score of those surveyed in 1971 is 29 percent less than that of those surveyed in the 1970 NFS (2.2 compared to 3.1). We have no explanation for this difference, and because of the relatively small number of cases we are not inclined to speculate. However, it should be noted that the largest increase in approval of abortion among all age groups included in the 1965 and 1970 NFS surveys was among black women younger than 20 years o f age. (8)