Research Pro-life people partly motivated to prevent casual sex (data study)

[C C]

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1076904

INTRO:  Abortion is murder – the emotive rallying cry popular with pro-life campaigners keen to convert others to their cause. But what if opposition to abortion isn’t all about sanctity-of-life concerns, and instead at least partly about discouraging casual sex?

That’s what psychology researchers found in experiments designed to test what really drives anti-abortion attitudes in the USA. The study, published today in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, challenges how most pro-life individuals justify their views on abortion.

“Previous research has sometimes assumed that pro-life attitudes are sincerely driven by beliefs about when life begins or about sanctity-of-life concerns,” said Dr Jordan Moon, a social psychologist and lecturer from Brunel University of London. “But people often care deeply about the behaviour of those around them. In particular, some people believe that loose sexual norms are damaging to society. People who associate abortion rights with loose norms might thus dislike abortion.”

The researchers – Dr Moon and Dr Jaimie Arona Krems, from the University of California, Los Angeles – distinguish between two possible accounts: a “face-value account,” which takes people at their word that their opposition to abortion is driven solely by sanctity-of-life concerns, and a “strategic account,” which suggests that pro-life positions are at least partly motivated by other concerns, which people might not be consciously aware of.

“The strategic account doesn’t imply that pro-life individuals are being disingenuous,” Dr Moon explained. “When they say that abortion is murder, they aren’t lying about what they believe.”

To test the strategic and face-value accounts against each other, the researchers assessed US citizens’ support for different political bills aimed at saving the same number of lives and having the same costs to taxpayers, but varying in their implications for the costs of casual sex.

In three experiments, they showed 1,960 participants, at random, different bills that would reduce abortions in different ways... (MORE - details, no ads)

[Magical Realist]

Right..cuz everybody knows all good Christian girls don't have sex till marriage. Even my mom admitted she did it with my dad. The virtue of sexless romantic love is a myth of a bygone era.

[Syne]

Being against casual sex isn't the same as no sex before marriage. Sex in a committed, but unmarried, relationship is preferred over "hookup culture," which incentivizes no commitment at all.

But I wouldn't expect a gay man to understand the difference.

[Magical Realist]

Being against casual sex isn't the same as no sex before marriage. Sex in a committed, but unmarried, relationship is preferred over "hookup culture," which incentives no commitment at all.

Pretty sure pro-lifers hold no moral authority over how many people other people freely choose to have sex with. This isn't the 1950's after all, as much as they would like it to be. They need to pay more attention to what goes on in their own bedrooms, if anything at all.

[Syne]

Who said pro-lifers had authority over anyone? The voices in your head?

But everyone contributes to the culture, whether that's a culture of single mothers raising depressed, drug-abusing criminals or it's a culture that values families and their stabilizing influence upon society.

I think we all know which you choose.

[Magical Realist]

Who said pro-lifers had authority over anyone?

You and pro-lifers apparently, hence your self-righteous moral condemnation of other people who are having what you call "casual sex".

[Syne]

Again, your tenuous grasp of the English language fails you. That you think condemnation equates to authority is laughable.

It's also hypocritical that you're trying to be self-righteous in your own standards for society while condemning the standards of others. But we know you lack the self-reflection to even understand that simple fact.

[Magical Realist]

That you think condemnation equates to authority is laughable.

Morally condemning someone assumes you have the moral authority to do so. Only an idiot, or a sociopath, wouldn't know that.

[Syne]

Everyone has their own moral authority to condemn others. You've been doing it yourself, moron. But when you allude to the 1950s, you're making the idiotic assumption that condemnation has any power of force. No one, except your own straw man, believes they have the power to force others to do things.

Criticizing the lifestyle of others may be morally motivated, but that doesn't imply any authority... unless you agree with the principles it is based upon. For example, the Catholic Church is a moral authority, but that only means something to Catholics... unless you're a retard.

[Magical Realist]

Everyone has their own moral authority to condemn others.

No they don't. Nobody does. Until you walk a mile...judge not that yet be not judged...he who is without sin...you catch the gist. It's what all the wise ones thru out history have taught us. Only the weak and spiteful and petty-minded morally condemn others as an attempt to feel superior to them--to project their own shame and self-disgust onto them. Hence pro-lifers haughtily condemning other people for their personal sex lives, as if they have any business doing that.