In this study, we seek to describe and explain changes in mass
abortion attitudes in Poland and the United States. Both countries exhibit
modest, but significant, declines in support for legal abortion during the
1990s and early years of the twenty-first century. When compositional,
structural, and period effects are estimated separately, both countries
exhibit strong pro-life period effects beginning in the late 1990s. In
Poland, compositional effects exert pro-choice pressure but are
counteracted by strong pro-life structural effects. By contrast,
compositional effects in the United States are rather weak, but strong
pro-choice structural effects are offset by pro-life period effects. The
latter result is attributed to strategic framing of the abortion issue by
pro-life elites.A version of this paper was
presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association, Chicago, September 2004. Thanks are due David Damore, Kenneth
Fernandez, Sheila Lambert, Jonathan Strand, Matthew Wetstein, and Melanie
Young for valuable comments and assistance.