The abortion debate in American Christianity: church authority structures, denominational responses, and the stances of the affiliated

Abstract

With religion serving an important role in shaping individuals’ stances on moral issues, the question of how religion impacts major social and political issues is of undeniable consequence. This paper explores both the response of Christian denominations in the USA to the evolving social dialog on abortion and the stances of affiliated members in relation to those denominational stances. For the first aspect, the organizational and authority structures of the denominations in question were examined to see if they play a role in how denominations responded to this social issue. For the second aspect, General Social Survey data were used to examine the general stances on abortion of the religiously affiliated belonging to specific polities over the past half-century. Polities were selected due to their similar organizational structures, as this granted insight into possible organizational influence at the individual level. This research highlights both the dissimilarities between similarly structured religious organizations and the general mindsets of the congregations on abortion as well as how the varying organizational structures in question exhibit inherent differences between one another yet have relative stability in their positions on abortion over time.