Rising anti-abortion sentiment in Turkey: Determinants of abortion attitudes from 1990 to 2018

Although abortion has been legal in Turkey since 1983, increasing conservative political rhetoric and de facto restrictions in recent years have made it less accessible and more stigmatized. This mixed-methods thesis examines how attitudes toward abortion have changed in Turkey between 1990 and 2018 and the role of factors such as religious beliefs, political views, income, and education in this change. In this context, the thesis uses World Values Survey data to analyze the determinants of abortion attitudes using ordered logistic regression models. In addition, in-depth interviews with ob-gyns who have over 20 years of experience were used to investigate the implications of changing attitudes toward abortion and stigmatization in the healthcare settings. Quantitative findings show that anti-abortion attitudes have increased significantly from 1990 to 2018, and that religious beliefs and political conservatism are the strongest and most persistent determinants of attitudes toward abortion. In contrast, the effects of income and education have weakened over time. Qualitative findings reveal that the politicization of anti-abortion discourse and institutional restrictions have led to the marginalization of abortion services in public hospitals and weakened the capacity and motivation of healthcare workers to provide these services. The thesis demonstrates how attitudes toward abortion in Turkey have been influenced by ideological polarization and an increasingly conservative political atmosphere, and how this has resulted in negative consequences for access to abortion services.