Social work students' abortion views: The role of sexual attitudes and sociodemographic characteristics

Although social workers are often employed in roles in which they encounter sensitive reproductive and sexual health topics, a dearth of social work research exists regarding abortion in social work. In particular, how social work students’ sociodemographic characteristics, personally-held sexual attitudes, and abortion viewpoints may conflict with professionally-held values of self-determination, social justice, and resource referrals to clients is unexplored in existing scholarship. This study examines results from a nationwide survey of social work students (N = 504).

Students’ answers to sexual permissiveness and birth control attitudes questions were regressed on answers to a 5-item abortion attitudes scale, controlling for sex, race/ethnicity, political affiliation, age, sexual orientation, and religiosity. Linear regression results indicated that as students endorsed increasingly sexually-permissive attitudes, negative relationships were found regarding their opposition to abortion (β = -.43, p < .001). Furthermore, as students increasingly displayed supportive attitudes toward birth control, they were significantly less likely to endorse anti-choice attitudes (β = -.27, p < .001). Regarding demographics, conservative political affiliation and higher religiosity significantly predicted anti-choice attitudes for both sexual permissiveness and birth control attitudes.

Results suggest that, in some cases, a tension may exist between broader professional values and social workers’ personal attitudes toward abortion. The National Association of Social Workers’ policy statement regarding this topic supports unimpeded access to family planning services, including abortion. However, as these views are not adopted individually by all social workers, future research would benefit from explorations of the ethical and practice-based implications of these disparate viewpoints.