It is a well known fact that in the United States that opposition to abortion tends to be concentrated among the most religious segment of the population. It is also a fact that the more secular nations tend to be more accepting of abortion than the religious ones. But what about the trends within nations? Yesterday on Gene Expression I posted a chart which shows that the proportion of Catholics who oppose abortion is strongly correlated with the proportion of the other major religious group who oppose abortion. All things equal there was an international tendency for Catholics to be somewhat more anti-abortion than non-Catholics, but a far better predictor of attitudes was not religion but nationality. In other words Catholic Germans resembled Protestant Germans while Catholic Chileans resembled Protestant Chileans.
But what about religion and irreligion more generally on the international level? That is, do religious and irreligious people within a nation tend to correlate in their attitudes toward abortion? Do atheists in Germany resemble religious people in Germany more than they do atheists in Nigeria? I used the same methodology is in the Gene Expression post. I used The World Values Survey. I looked at Wave 5 and Waves 3 & 4 separately, so the latter are aggregated. This means some nations show up twice in the data set. Additionally I discarded any nation where the sample size for atheists was 10 or less. There is a variable which asks people to rate their attitude toward abortion on a 0 to 10 scale in terms of if it is justifiable, 0 = “never justifiable.” That is the proportion in the data, abortion is never justifiable. Additionally for each nation there is a breakdown into three categories, “religious person,” “not a religious person” and “convinced atheist.” So the raw data below you see rows which have nations, and three columns for each category. All the numbers are percentages of those who believe that abortion is never justifiable.
Below are two scatterplots. Each data point represents a nation.
1) It is clear that religion correlate with opposition to abortion in the vast majority of nations.
2) But, the attitudes of religious people and non-religious people track each other so that the irreligious in nation X may oppose abortion much more than the religious in nation Y.
3) The small sample sizes for “convinced atheists” was probably the reason that you see more of a residual in that plot than in the one which included those who were “not religious.”
Raw data below the fold.
| Religious | Not Religious | Atheist | |
| France | 20 | 9.2 | 7 |
| Great Britain | 27.5 | 12.9 | 15.8 |
| Italy | 42.5 | 14.5 | 4.2 |
| Netherlands | 25.7 | 14.1 | 9.4 |
| Spain | 29.8 | 7.2 | 0 |
| USA | 30.3 | 13.7 | 8 |
| Canada | 31.9 | 17.1 | 3.7 |
| Japan | 21.3 | 12.3 | 11.9 |
| Mexico | 56.3 | 49.5 | 45.5 |
| South Africa | 57.8 | 54.6 | 45.7 |
| Australia | 26.7 | 9.6 | 8.6 |
| Sweden | 3.5 | 2.1 | 0 |
| Argentina | 63.5 | 40 | 28.9 |
| Finland | 20 | 4.6 | 0 |
| South Korea | 46.3 | 24.3 | 26.9 |
| Poland | 53.2 | 15.5 | 12.6 |
| Switzerland | 20 | 6.3 | 3.2 |
| Brazil | 64.9 | 52.3 | 39.9 |
| Chile | 68 | 46.6 | 24.5 |
| India | 63.3 | 48.8 | 40 |
| Slovenia | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Bulgaria | 18.3 | 17.2 | 2.1 |
| Romania | 50 | 29.2 | 20 |
| China | 70.1 | 66.3 | 70.1 |
| Taiwan | 39.6 | 31.5 | 27.2 |
| Ukraine | 32.3 | 23.6 | 69.3 |
| Russia | 35.8 | 30.8 | 33.8 |
| Vietnam | 55.9 | 52.2 | 57.3 |
| Colombia | 75 | 70 | 62.5 |
| Serbia | 24 | 14.4 | 13.9 |
| New Zealand | 28.1 | 5.2 | 3.6 |
| Cyprus | 44.2 | 31.8 | 15.9 |
| Iraq | 90.1 | 80.1 | 84.6 |
| Hong Kong | 41.9 | 35.7 | 26.2 |
| Andorra | 13.5 | 5.2 | 1.2 |
| Malaysia | 43.1 | 44.1 | 42.9 |
| Burkina Faso | 65.4 | 63.5 | 75 |
| Germany | 24.7 | 9.1 | 9.4 |
| Albania | 21 | 8.5 | 13.5 |
| Azerbaijan | 29.6 | 26.3 | 44.4 |
| Argentina | 60.9 | 39.7 | 25.2 |
| Australia | 32.6 | 12 | 8.2 |
| Austria | 28 | 9.4 | 3.6 |
| Armenia | 22.7 | 24.2 | 11.4 |
| Belgium | 37.7 | 18 | 9.9 |
| Bosnia | 34.2 | 23.2 | 16.3 |
| Bulgaria | 26.3 | 15.3 | 15.3 |
| Belarus | 22.6 | 16.4 | 13.3 |
| Canada | 35.7 | 15.6 | 4.7 |
| Chile | 72.6 | 57.7 | 47.5 |
| China | 57.1 | 56.2 | 50 |
| Taiwan | 47.3 | 42.1 | 53.8 |
| Colombia | 73.6 | 65.9 | 50 |
| Croatia | 37.5 | 10.9 | 6.6 |
| Czech | 18.6 | 6.9 | 5.7 |
| Denmark | 16.2 | 6.5 | 2 |
| Dominican Republic | 63.8 | 43.8 | 38.5 |
| El Salvador | 91.4 | 89.3 | 85.7 |
| Estonia | 23.4 | 14.2 | 14.2 |
| Finland | 19.1 | 10.3 | 5 |
| France | 22.7 | 8.6 | 5.4 |
| Georgia | 30.4 | 20.5 | 34.8 |
| Germany | 30.6 | 12.6 | 10.2 |
| Greece | 22.2 | 8.2 | 2.1 |
| Hungary | 34.1 | 19.2 | 20.6 |
| Iceland | 13.7 | 6.1 | 3 |
| India | 61.1 | 55.2 | 55.6 |
| Iran | 78.7 | 66.2 | 56.7 |
| Ireland | 57.8 | 37.5 | 14.6 |
| Italy | 35.7 | 12.3 | 4 |
| Japan | 23.4 | 14.2 | 14.2 |
| South Korea | 48.6 | 29.4 | 34 |
| Kyrgyzstan | 63.3 | 43.2 | 48.1 |
| Latvia | 26.7 | 14.5 | 20 |
| Lithuania | 39 | 12.1 | 14.6 |
| Luxembourg | 24.3 | 8 | 7.1 |
| Mexico | 65.6 | 53.8 | 33.6 |
| Moldova | 43.4 | 16.7 | 7.8 |
| Netherlands | 20.8 | 6.6 | 8.2 |
| New Zealand | 26.3 | 12.2 | 9.7 |
| Nigeria | 73 | 61.1 | 67.7 |
| Norway | 20.8 | 10.1 | 4.5 |
| Peru | 70.2 | 68.1 | 56.2 |
| Poland | 46.6 | 9.7 | 8.1 |
| Portugal | 37.5 | 19.7 | 10.5 |
| Puerto Rico | 78 | 67.4 | 60 |
| Romania | 37.1 | 18.2 | 11.5 |
| Russia | 20.2 | 12 | 19.9 |
| Slovakia | 30.1 | 6.4 | 8 |
| Vietnam | 66.3 | 57.3 | 60.7 |
| Slovenia | 28.7 | 9.4 | 10.7 |
| South Africa | 60 | 59.1 | 32.8 |
| Zimbabwe | 93.4 | 84.4 | 76.1 |
| Spain | 38.9 | 16.6 | 8.3 |
| Sweden | 9 | 3.1 | 2.2 |
| Switzerland | 29.4 | 15.5 | 4.3 |
| Turkey | 67.6 | 54.3 | 22.2 |
| Ukraine | 35.3 | 21.9 | 20.1 |
| Macedonia | 39.3 | 16.9 | 29.4 |
| Great Britain | 32.3 | 20.2 | 12.6 |
| Tanzania | 90.3 | 81.2 | 86.7 |
| USA | 36.4 | 16 | 4.4 |
| Uruguay | 58.6 | 39.8 | 20.2 |
| Venezuela | 71 | 66 | 61.5 |
| Serbia | 25.3 | 16.7 | 21 |
| Northern Ireland | 55.4 | 32.4 | 22.6 |
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I find it interesting that “convinced atheists”, assuming that they accept Darwin, would favor abortion at all.
Explain to me again, just how does elective abortion square with the Darwinian reproductive imperative?
Art, is that really so hard to understand? Darwinian natural selection (which is not the same as atheism, of course) is a theory about the natural history of the world, and the origins and ongoing development of life. It is *not* a system of morals and ethics. To say that the force of gravity accelerates a person downward at 9.8 m/s/s is *not* to say that it’s morally good or evil that this happens. It’s descriptive, not prescriptive.
An atheist has to use the same kind of moral reasoning when it comes to these thorny issues as anybody else: by thinking about harm, and weighing rights and responsibilites.
Art: Huh? Just because someone believes that Darwinian evolution describes life in general, it doesn’t mean that it prescribes life for an individual. Do you think that individual Darwinians, in order to be consistent, should attempt to have the maximum number of offspring? Silly! That’s Catholics your thinking of!
HW: I think Art might now suggest that Newtonists should be morally compelled to jump off cliffs and buildings in order to square with the gravitational imperative.
Evolution is a scientific theory focused only on reproductive success. It is not a theory about the “natural history” of the world. Natural history is the study of all objects of nature. Further, Evolution offers little more than speculation about the origins of life.
“Do you think that individual Darwinians, in order to be consistent, should attempt to have the maximum number of offspring?”
No, I’m saying that aborting a child contradicts the Darwinian imperative of reproduction. According to Darwin, everything you are, every trait you possess, serves only one real purpose – the production of offspring. The willing destruction of your genetic legacy represents a serious evolutionary flaw.
“Newtonists should be morally compelled to jump off cliffs and buildings…”
What are morals to an atheist? Are they the product of societal consensus? Do they exist outside the values of the mob? What is their source? Maybe they are nothing more than the epigenetic imprint of a religious society. You tell me.
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“No, I’m saying that aborting a child contradicts the Darwinian imperative of reproduction. According to Darwin, everything you are, every trait you possess, serves only one real purpose – the production of offspring. The willing destruction of your genetic legacy represents a serious evolutionary flaw.”
and this is why in 1000 years, the abortion debate will be decided by natural selection
“What are morals to an atheist? Are they the product of societal consensus? Do they exist outside the values of the mob? What is their source? Maybe they are nothing more than the epigenetic imprint of a religious society. You tell me.”
Reason: I would start reading Plato, then Smith and Locke, maybe Nozick for dessert.
The morals of a religous person consist of reading something that other people wrote thousands of years ago + modern societal consensus. Can you PROVE that your moral views are direct from God? Who says God is right, anyway?
Reason: I would start reading Plato, then Smith and Locke, maybe Nozick for dessert.>
Locke? A Christian who affirmed the supernatural of the scriptures? Locke believed the Law of Nature was God.
“Locke? A Christian who affirmed the supernatural of the scriptures? Locke believed the Law of Nature was God.”
Nobody’s perfect 🙂
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The atheist data looks suspect to me. There’s definitely going to be a small sample size in there (just how many atheists can you poll in Iran, anyway?). But I’d go further and say that it is probably too small to be statistically significant. Most of the trendline’s 0.68 correlation is being driven from the low-numbers (where, presumably you’re in a country where lots of people are atheists), but the best trendline for this set will be lower than the one plotted: it is being dragged up by the essentially random data higher in the series.
A very interesting follow on would be to look at how these data plot with the percentage religiosity of the country, and the major religion involved. I’d suspect that, while country is a better predictor of attitude than religion is, the religiosity of one’s country is a highly significant factor.
(re Art – hmmm what a surprise – a creationist who doesn’t understand what evolution is).
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