Sarah Scully

Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hicks, Barbara

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

Although the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right to first trimester abortion in the landmark Roe v. Wade (1973) decision, inconsistencies about the scope of control individuals have over their sexual and reproductive health decisions have created one of the most divisive issues in modern American politics. Since that ruling, more Supreme Court decisions and federal laws centering around these issues have been passed, but there is still a lack of clarity on where legal lines can be drawn. State legislatures have taken advantage of this confusion and passed floods of regulations meant to restrict access to abortion, often at the expense of access to other vital reproductive health services. This study examines which factors are behind state passage of restrictive reproductive laws. I answer this question with a quantitative analysis of the current status of abortion access and comprehensive sexuality education in all states, through the use of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. In particular, this analysis focuses on the gender, party, religious, and racial makeup of state legislatures and state populations, as well as the statewide economic status and public opinion on abortion. My findings indicate that structuring debates of reproductive rights around religious and gender issues may be dismissive of other influential factors, like economic status and race.

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