The pro-life perspective is partly based on opposition to casual sex rather than just attention to life

The abortion debate in the United States has long been a moral conflict at the beginning of life. Biological advocates often cite phrases like “Abortion is murder” and position themselves as unborn defenders. But new research suggests that the motivations of these statements may not account for the complete story.

A study published yesterday in the journal Psychological and Personality Sciences suggests that opposition to abortion may be driven in part by the desire to stop accidental sexual behavior, not just by the concern about the sacredness of life.

Researchers from Brunel University in London and the University of California conducted three experiments involving 1,960 U.S. participants to test methods that truly drive anti-abortion attitudes. Their findings challenge the conventional understanding of biological status.

“Previous research has sometimes believed that biological attitudes are driven by sincere belief in when life begins or about the divine concerns of life,” said Dr. Jordan Moon, a social psychologist and lecturer at Brunel University in London. “But people often care especially about the behavior of those around them.

In the experiment, participants were randomly shown to reduce different bills for miscarriage by various methods. Each bill is described as preventing the exact same amount of abortions and causing taxpayers to pay the same amount of money. The only difference is how the bill will achieve its goals.

A bill proposes punishment for women seeking fines and possible jail time. Another focuses on comprehensive sex education and provides information about birth control. The third promotes modest sex education to discourage sexual life before marriage.

If participants inspire what the “face value” account suggests by saving unborn lives, they should support all bills equally. But this is not what happened.

Instead, the strongest abortion opponents show clear preferences. The bill they support would punish women seeking abortion or promote alcohol-only education, while support for comprehensive sex education has greatly reduced support, but despite all the bills all said to have saved the same lives.

This pattern persists even as researchers control religious beliefs, social conservatism, and economic conservatism, suggesting that these preferences are not only due to religious or broad conservative views.

“Overall, the data from our experiments provide greater support for strategic accounts,” Dr. Moon said. “Indeed, our findings present some challenges to face-to-face challenges, and people who say abortion is murder seem to support all policies that may reduce abortion.

Researchers have noticed with caution that this does not mean that the biological individual is intentionally deceiving. Most people are not fully aware of all the psychological factors that drive their opinions.

“The strategic narrative does not mean that the biological individual is unwise,” Dr. Moon explained. “When they say that abortion is a murder, they are not saying their beliefs.”

When asked explicitly, participants confirmed that they believed that penalizing and abstinent bills were more likely to reduce recreationality than comprehensive gender education methods.

Dr. Jaimie Arona Krems, associate professor of psychology at UCLA and co-author of the study, stressed that these findings do not suggest that concerns about leisure sexual behavior are the only driving force of anti-abortion attitudes. Even the strongest abortion opponents in the study reported at least modest support for comprehensive sex education.

Dr. Crems said: “The attitude to abortion may depend on a wide range of influences, and the opponents of abortion are not unique, while moral arguments may be deep, our findings, our findings only show to some extent that, at least to some extent, are prone to happen to all.

The study reached a particularly controversial moment in American politics. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, states have implemented a wide range of different abortion laws, ranging from nearly all bans to expanded protections. The results suggest that a deeper focus on sexual behavior and social norms may be under surface moral debate.

Dr. Moon notes that both sides of the abortion debate gather behind memorable slogans: “The common sayings about biological positions, such as the focus on sacred sexual life, are not actually the cause of pro-emotion, but are socially desirable compared to other possible reasons.”

“I think this is a common process that happens within all of us,” he added. “We often don’t know where our attitudes come from, but when we show them to others, we naturally want to make the best arguments we can think of, saying you’re against abortion because the life you care about may be more convincing than saying you don’t want society to accept casual sex.”

This study contributes to an increasing number of studies examining how moral judgments are influenced by unknown motivations and self-interests. The authors argue that from immigration to economic policy, similar patterns of other political issues may be found.

As abortion remains a decisive issue in American politics, this study provides a more nuanced understanding of the psychological power that works, which leads us to discover that the established reasons for the beliefs we deeply hold may not always tell the complete story.