April 18, 2013 (C-FAM) – An international abortion advocacy group recently created a questionnaire as a way to measure abortion stigma. However, a look at the series of questions reveals it’s not a neutral tool to measure people’s attitudes, but rather an implement of advocacy seeking to redirect stigma onto those who oppose abortion.
The “stigmatizing attitudes, beliefs and actions scale” was created by Ipas, which promotes abortion worldwide by distributing abortion devices and holding “values clarification” workshops to remove stigma and generate acceptance for abortion.
The tool includes three groups of questions: negative stereotyping, exclusion and discrimination, and fear of contagion. Each category contains a series of statements and a place for those taking the assessment to record their reaction to the statements, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”
The first statement on the list is, “A woman who has an abortion is committing a sin.” The remaining 17 statements are a catalog of medical inaccuracy (“if a man has sex with a woman who has had an abortion, he will become infected with a disease”), sociological prejudice (“A woman who has had an abortion cannot be trusted”), and personal cruelty (“I would tease a woman who has had an abortion so that she will be ashamed about her decision”).
Notably absent from the list is any statement that alludes, even negatively, to the life of the child being aborted (e.g. “A woman who has an abortion is committing a murder” or “Unborn babies have rights that are violated by abortion”.) The statement about abortion being a sin is not qualified in any way as to what type of sin it is. Also absent from the questionnaire is any statement that makes moral judgments about sexual activity, such as whether promiscuity or extramarital sex is wrong.
Instead, the statements on the questionnaire range from ludicrously inaccurate to explicitly uncharitable. Presumably, this is so that the person taking the test will think that those who believe abortion is a sin also agree with the other statements, or wish to distance himself or herself from people who would be prejudiced or superstitious enough to believe them.
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In social science research, the crafting of surveys is a painstaking art, due to the subtle ways that the wording of a question can influence the reaction of the study subject. The same is true of opinion polling. Rather than asking questions that get at the heart of why people have negative attitudes toward abortion, Ipas presents a list of statements that blatantly mischaracterize the religious beliefs and cultural attitudes favoring children that are the reason many reject abortion.
While it may be tempting to assume that Ipas simply misunderstands the basis for their opponents’ objections, this would be naïve. By painting the opposition to abortion as ridiculous, Ipas invites their survey subjects to ridicule those who oppose abortion – including those who view it as sinful, yet would never intentionally abuse or ostracize a post-abortive woman.
In the information accompanying the survey, Ipas recommends that it be used 1) to gather information to design interventions to reduce stigma, 2) as way to determine which groups have more stigma against abortion, in order to target them for stigma-reduction interventions, and 3) as a “pre- and post-test” to measure short-term changes in the attitudes of individuals or groups before and after such an intervention has taken place.
Not included in that list is a presumptive 4) as a way to discredit abortion stigma by characterizing it as ignorance, superstition, and malice.
As this “research” tool demonstrates, the combination of advocacy and inquiry accomplishes nothing good in the absence of intellectual honesty.
Reprinted from C-FAM.