Religious Involvement, Asceticism and Abortion among Low Income Black Women

This paper attempts to specify the importance of religious involvement and asceticism to reaction to out-of-wedlock pregnancy, the decision to abort a pregnancy, and response to the abortion experience within a sample of young, black women. The traditional view of black religion and recent empirical...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociological analysis
Main Author: Robbins, James M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: 1980
In: Sociological analysis
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Summary:This paper attempts to specify the importance of religious involvement and asceticism to reaction to out-of-wedlock pregnancy, the decision to abort a pregnancy, and response to the abortion experience within a sample of young, black women. The traditional view of black religion and recent empirical research suggest that the contribution of religious involvement to response to abortion should be unique among blacks. Results based on a sample of young, unmarried, low income black women indicate that they cannot be said to be otherworldly nor nonascetic and that involvement in organized religion is related to greater unhappiness upon learning of out-of-wedlock conception and greater regret one year after induced abortion, but not the choice of abortion per se. It is suggested that those with a religious orientation may be more attuned to the moral dilemma posed by out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and consequently experience a certain degree of ambivalence regardless of the means chosen to resolve it.
ISSN:2325-7873
Contains:Enthalten in: Sociological analysis
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.2307/3709890