Finished Thesis, New Job

Just very recently I finished writing my Master’s Thesis, it was graded last week, and today I’m starting my new job as a PhD Candidate. I will be working at the department of Social Risk and Safety Studies, at the University of Twente. I will be working on a project regarding cross-country differences in the socio-economic outcomes of fertility related decisions. I’m sure to be writing more about this project in the coming four years.

Regarding my Master’s thesis, it studies polarization in North American’s abortion attitudes. I was able to locate a very nice lacuna in the literature, and built upon existing literature to solve this lacuna. But, without further ado, I will let the preface speak for itself:

Attitudes on the permissibility of induced abortion vary widely in the United States of America. How people think about abortion has often been the topic of scholarly studies, which highlighted aspects ranging from the level of the streets with protests either ‘pro-life’ or ‘pro-choice’, to the level of legislation and Supreme Court rulings, to the public opinion on abortion. The question whether public opinion on abortion has become more polarized received substantial attention of social scientists, as well. This study adds to this body of literature on polarization in the North Americans’ public opinion on induced abortion. It contributes a new explanatory framework on polarization of public opinion which allows much of the existing literature to be brought together, a suggestion for a statistical approach for analyzing hypotheses derived from this model, and new hypotheses derived from this model.
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Newspaper interview: Rebecca Gomperts (Women on Waves)

Last weekend, the magazine of NRC Handelsblad (a major Dutch newspaper), featured an interview with Rebecca Gomperts, the founder of Women on Waves. Women on Waves is “a Dutch non-profit organization concerned with women’s human rights. Its mission is to prevent unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortions throughout the world.” One of their activities that received most attention of public media, is sailing towards countries that prohibit induced abortion, and then to sail to international waters with women seeking an abortion. On international waters abortion pills can be provided, for on international water the ship falls under Dutch law.

What struck me in the interview, is the enormous amount of difficulties Rebecca Gomperts and Women on Waves have been confronted with. Whereas she had high hopes, ten years ago, for a whole fleet of ‘women on waves’ providing information and aid to women who required it, she recently has had to cancel some of their activities. This is the direct result of changes in Dutch abortion policy.

Partly, she is confronted with unjust allegations. For instance, she discusses the common misrepresentation of Women on Waves, especially reagrding what happens on their boat. The only types of abortion (if it can even be called that way) that are carried out there, are performed using abortion pills, and only in the first 16 days after a woman was expected to start menstruating. Moreover, their emphasis seems to be on providing information, rather than the actual abortion practice.

According to Gompert, the Dutch climate towards induced abortion is changing. Besides recent changes in the Dutch abortion policy, she also discusses how organisations against abortion receive more government funding than organisations in favour of the possibility for abortion. She concludes with being concerned that this financial inequality between organisations may topple public opinion against women’s opportunity to choose.

New developments on abortion in the liberal Netherlands

Although the Netherlands are known for their liberal stance on induced abortion, currently the issue is debated again. Two only slightly related subjects now gain considerably attention in popular media and public opinion.

The first is a slight change in policy regarding the use of the ‘abortion pill’ in very early pregnancies (before 16 days after a women was expected to start menstruating). The government decided that regulation regarding this procedure now is part of the abortion legislation (which is wasn’t). Although the government states that this does not change much for abortion practice, opponents argue that this results in a more restrictive abortion legislation.

Secondly, health inspection ordered the prosecution of Women on Waves, a Dutch organisation that uses boats to provide abortions and information to women in countries where abortion is prohibited. By sailing to international waters, their actions are regulated by Dutch legislation, providing a legal basis. Apparently, they violated the law by using the wrong type of boat.

Interestingly, a major Dutch newspaper featured an interview with Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Women on Waves, just this weekend. I’ve already rounded up some thoughts on this interview with the founder of Women on Waves, Rebecca Gomperts, which I will publish tomorrow. So, if you’re interested in this subject, do come back then!

Unintended Consequences Catholicism and Abortion Attitudes

One of the elegances of sociology is found in the unintended consequences of our actions. In my studies of attitudes towards abortion, I found a nice example of such unintended consequences regarding the Catholic church. But, I doubt that the findings are warranted by the analyses.
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Bad Science overestimates psychological consequences induced abortion

Can bad science lead us to draw wrong conclusions about the world we live in? “Of course it can“, we are inclined to think. And if so, can this have real-life consequences? Investigating these meta-questions is not as easy as it might seem, for it would require an exact manner to distinguish the good from the bad science, and it would require a subject that has been thoroughly investigated in both the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ ways to compare the outcomes.

One such subject would be the vast amount of research done on the psychological consequences of undergoing an induced abortion. This heavily researched (and heavily debated!) subject focusses primarily on the questions whether or not a women has a higher chance of suffering from anxiety, feeling of guilt, depression, or (other) mental disorders caused by undergoing an induced abortion. … Continue Reading

Republican Schoolmaster and the Narcissism of the Minor Differences

Now that we all know who the new President of the United States will be, people are preparing for a new type of government, with a new and markedly different agenda than the previous one. Most people are very contend with this new agenda, but some will be disappointed. How does this influence the people’s opinion, one might ask? Will conflict be the result, or can one expect that in general the new agenda will be accepted and that those who voted McCain will change their opinions to generally accept the new policy?

In their classic article, Franklin and Kosaki studied something similar, although they focused on the impact of a Supreme Court ruling regarding induced abortion. Remember though, how Obama and MaCain differed on this issue, with Obama stating to protect the Roe v. Wade Court Ruling, and McCain trying to overthrow it. It is exactly the effect on public opinion of this Roe v. Wade Court Ruling that Franklin and Kosaki studied.
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Graph: Abortion Attitudes in United States

I have been writing about abortion a lot, recently, so I decided to provide some more context regarding this important subject, by making some graphics. The first graph I created is on trends in American public opinion regarding induced abortion:

(click on the graph for a larger image)
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Women on Waves and unintended polarisation

Recently, I have been giving some thought on what might constitute polarisation of attitudes. Especially, I’m interested in whether or not the debate on induced abortion in American society has become more polarised. The recent news on the presence and activities of Women on Waves in Valencia, Spain, has spurred some more thought on this.

A lot has been written about this, as well as on what exactly should be interpreted as polarisation. Methodologically inclined literature seems to be debating this to some extent, but at least agree that it has to do with an increasingly broad distribution of attitudes or opinions. In less technical terms, this means that the opinions of large number of people in society differ in increasing amounts. so, we’re talking about polarisation of the general public, instead of the polarised activities of either pro-life, or pro-choice organisations.
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Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Can blogs help scientific research? Probably, but I’m sure to have found one that helps me in my own research. The research I’m currently working on is on attitudes towards induced abortion, and especially the polarisation of these attitudes in America.

The body of literature on this subject is vast and has interesting titles as ‘Culture Wars’, and ‘Before the Shooting Begins’. The Culture Wars hypothesis, proffered by Hunter, basically states that Americans’ attitudes have increasingly been formed by two diverging fundaments. One important aspect of the Culture Wars is the (strong) impact of religious doctrine on many Americans’ life.

To get a good feeling of what is going on in these ‘Culture Wars’, I try to read more than just academic literature. Besides newspapers and, of course, what the U.S. Presidential candidates state about abortion, I recently discovered a blog named ‘Dispatches from the Culture Wars’.
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Abortion Activism in 1971 Science?

Science changes, as does the way scientists report on their work. Reading a 1971 article in Science, on attitudes towards induced abortion, I was truly amazed by the sheer amount of apparent activism that might have influenced the interpretation of the findings. Let’s have a look.
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