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Understanding the Gender and Partisan Dynamics of Abortion Voting in the House of Representatives

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2021

Kelly L. Rolfes-Haase  and
Michele L. Swers Open the ORCID record for Michele L. Swers [Opens in a new window]
Kelly L. Rolfes-Haase
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
Michele L. Swers
Affiliation:
Georgetown University
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Abstract

Analyzing votes on abortion-related legislation from the 103rd (1993–94) to the 115th (2017–18) Congresses, we find that both gender and party influence members’ voting behavior. Among Republicans, women are more likely than men to oppose pro-life initiatives, although the impact of gender attenuates over time. Among Democrats, apparent gender differences in voting behavior are explained by the nature of the districts they represent. We also find that the type of abortion issue impacts the influence of gender. Republican women are more likely than Republican men to defect on policies that highlight women's autonomy, such as on bills related to contraception, while Democratic men are more likely than Democratic women to support legislation related to abortion bans. These gender differences reflect a complex dynamic of members’ responsiveness to public opinion on specific issues and party efforts to influence that opinion in ways that favor perceptions of party issue expertise.

Keywords

RepresentationvotingabortionCongressHouse of Representativesgender and legislative behavior
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 2022 , pp. 448 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

The authors would like to thank Kelly Dittmar, Rebecca Kreitzer, Frances Lee, Hans Noel, Ikuma Ogura, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and the anonymous reviewers for their advice and comments. We thank Nicole Asmussen Mathew, Gary Jacobson, Ella Foster-Molina, Craig Volden, and Alan Wiseman for sharing data.

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