Policymakers’ Abortion Preferences: Understanding the Intersection of Gender and Wealth

• Published date: 01 January 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00104140241237452
• Author: Leonardo R. Arriola,Donghyun Danny Choi,Justine M. Davis,Melanie L. Phillips,Lise Rakner
• Date: 01 January 2025

Article

Comparative Political Studies

2025, Vol. 58(1) 78–121

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/00104140241237452

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Policymakers’Abortion

Preferences:

Understanding the

Intersection of Gender

and Wealth

Leonardo R. Arriola

1,2

, Donghyun Danny Choi

3

,

Justine M. Davis

4

, Melanie L. Phillips

1

, and

Lise Rakner

2,5

Abstract

When are politicians willing to liberalize abortion laws? While restricted

access to legal abortion affects millions of women around the world, there is

relatively little understanding of the factors shaping the views of politicians

who craft or uphold such restrictive laws. This study examines the impact of a

public health framing commonly employed by activists to persuade politicians

to reform abortion laws. We provide evidence that politicians’preferences

toward abortion reforms are shaped by the intersection of gender and wealth.

Drawing on a survey experiment conducted among more than 600 politicians

in Zambia, we show that only women politicians from less wealthy back-

grounds are more likely to support policy liberalization after being exposed

to a public health framing. These f‌indings underscore how economic

1

University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

2

Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway

3

Brown University, Providence RI, USA

4

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

5

Universitetet i Bergen, Bergen, Norway

Corresponding Author:

Melanie L. Phillips, Department of Political Science, University of California Berkeley, 210 Social

Sciences Building, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Email: melaniephillips@berkeley.edu

Data Availability Statement included at the end of the article

inequalities can affect the substantive representation of women’s interests and

provide a baseline for further research on the use of framing strategies in

other developing country contexts.

Keywords

abortion, gender, intersectionality, African politics, reproductive rights,

experimental research, class

Women across the Global South face a public health crisis due to extensive

restrictions on reproductive rights. Nearly half of all abortions carried out in

developing countries are classif‌ied as unsafe: where a pregnancy is terminated

by an unqualif‌ied individual or in conditions that do not conform to minimal

medical standards (Ganatra et al., 2017). Such unsafe abortions are a leading

contributor to maternal mortality, according to the WorldHealth Organization,

with nearly all of those deaths occurring in developing countries (Gerdts et al.,

2015;Latt et al., 2019). Although women are as likely to seek an abortion

where it is prohibited as where it is available upon request (Sedgh et al., 2016),

abortion-related deaths are systematically higher in countries that legally

restrict abortion access (Latt et al., 2019). Even when women survive unsafe

abortions, they can go on to suffer long-term complications such as infertility,

chronic gynecological problems, or other disabilities (Fa´

undes & Shah, 2015;

Warriner, 2006).

Providing access to safe abortion involves medical and religious issues, but

it is ultimately a political question. It is through the politics of elections,

legislation, and regulation that abortion is made available to women, whether

permitted without restriction, in exceptional cases of rape and incest, or only

when required to save the life of a woman, if at all. Given the fundamental role

of politicians in making abortion access legal and safe, we examine in this

paper whether and how politicians adapt their policy preferences toward

abortion liberalization.

Relatively little is known about the factors that inf‌luence politicians’views

of abortion policy. Although there has been extensive research on general

attitudes toward abortion (Abramowitz, 1995;Cook, 2019;Jelen & Wilcox,

2003), nearly all of this work is based on average citizens, not those directly

involved in policymaking. Moreover, there is no consensus in survey-based

work on what underpins abortion policy preferences or causes them to change.

Early f‌indings regarding factors such as gender (Patel & Johns, 2009), religion

(Jelen, 2014), and education (Jelen & Wilcox, 2003) have either been

overturned over time or pared back considerably. This has resulted in an acute

gap in our knowledge about the biases or heuristics that may play into abortion

policymaking (Linde & Vis, 2017;Sheffer et al., 2018).

Arriola et al.79

Focusing on how abortion is framed in public discourse offers one fruitful

path for understanding potential shifts in politicians’policy preferences.

Noteworthy instances of abortion decriminalization around the world have

often followed activists’efforts to reframe abortion as a social justice issue

that disproportionately affects the health of poor women. In Argentina, for

example, activists were able to partner with legislators to bring about greater

access to legal abortion after pivoting to emphasize the dangers that illicit

abortions create for poor women in an unequal society (Anderson, 2022;Daby

& Moseley, 2022;Lopreite, 2023). Activists have been able to promote similar

reforms in countries as varied as Ethiopia (Holcombe & Kidanemariam

Gebru, 2022), Mexico (S´

anchez Fuentes et al., 2008), and Nepal (Shakya

et al., 2004) by framing abortion as a public health issue that directly links the

prevalence of maternal mortality among poor women to the legal restrictions

that lead them to rely on clandestine, unsafe procedures. Yet, while the re-

framing of abortion as a public health issue appears to precede liberalizing

reforms in many countries, it remains unclear to what extent such a framing

strategy actually persuades politicians to change their policy positions. Can

the provision of fact-based information about the toll of unsafe abortion cause

politicians to support liberalizing reforms?

Framing abortion as a public health issue is likely to resonate with women

politicians in particular. Womenpoliticians frequently assume a leading role in

advocating for the expansion of reproductive rights within legislatures in order

to improve women’s overall wellbeing (Berkman & O’Connor, 1993;Levy

et al., 2001;Sawer, 2012). The likelihood of abortion legalization is, in fact,

correlated with the proportion of women elected to legislatures (Asal et al.,

2008;Budde & Heichel, 2017). Yet, while there is a relationship between

women’s descriptive representation in elected off‌ice and the expansion of

reproductive rights, other demographic and sociological factors are likely to

inf‌luence whether women politicians will support the adoption of abortion

policies.

We argue that a woman politician’s personal wealth will affect her

stance on abortion liberalization. Drawing on prior research showing that

class distinctions affect women’s substantive representation (Blof‌ield,

2008,2013;Htun & Power, 2006;Htun & Weldon, 2010), we posit

that a woman politician’s wealth will condition her receptivity to a public

health framing emphasizing the risks associated with unsafe abortion. Such

a framing may well persuade a woman politician from a middle-class or

working-class background because she will intuitively understand how a

lack of resources can limit family planning options. By contrast, a woman

politician from a wealthy background may be less persuaded by a public

health framing; the issue is simply less immediate for her because her

family planning options are largely unconstrained by legal or medical

restrictions. We have no such expectations for men politicians in this

80 Comparative Political Studies 58(1)