Aiken Abigail R A, Scott James G
Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Red McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
Contraception. 2016 May;93(5):412-20. doi: 10.1016/j.contraception.2016.01.007. Epub 2016 Jan 13.
Following decades of mainstream bipartisan support, contraception has reemerged as a controversial political issue in the United States. At the same time, opposition to abortion has intensified. State legislatures across the country have enacted highly visible policies limiting access to family planning. Perhaps the most striking example occurred in 2011 in Texas, when legislators instituted unprecedented requirements on abortion providers and cut public funding for contraception by two thirds. Yet, despite popular interpretations of this phenomenon as a simple byproduct of increasing partisan divisions, little is understood about the factors underlying such policy shifts.
We fit Bayesian ideal-point models to analyze correlation patterns in record-vote data in the Texas House of Representatives in the 2003 and 2011 Legislatures. Both sessions had large Republican majorities and saw the passage of restrictive abortion bills, but they differed markedly with respect to public funding for contraception.
We demonstrate that variation in voting on family-planning issues cannot be fully attributed to partisanship in either session. However, the politics of abortion and contraception have converged over time, and - at least for Democrats - the correlation between constituency characteristics and voting behavior on family-planning legislation is markedly higher in 2011 than in 2003. These shifts have been partly driven by legislators from high-poverty, majority Latino districts near the US-Mexico border.
Recent dramatic shifts in family-planning policy go beyond simple partisan divisions. As the politics of abortion and contraception have converged, policies that are increasingly hostile to reproductive health and that disproportionately affect low-income minority women have emerged.
Recent shifts in family-planning policy restrict women's access to contraception and abortion, yet little research has examined why such shifts are occurring. This paper analyzes factors underlying voting behavior on restrictive policies in Texas. Identification of these factors helps us to better understand the current political climate surrounding our field.
在得到两党数十年的主流支持后，避孕在美国再次成为一个有争议的政治问题。与此同时，对堕胎的反对也愈演愈烈。美国各州立法机构纷纷出台引人注目的政策，限制人们获得计划生育服务。也许最突出的例子发生在2011年的得克萨斯州，当时立法者对堕胎提供者提出了前所未有的要求，并将避孕的公共资金削减了三分之二。然而，尽管人们普遍将这种现象解读为党派分歧加剧的简单产物，但对于导致此类政策转变的因素却知之甚少。
我们采用贝叶斯理想点模型来分析2003年和2011年得克萨斯州众议院记录表决数据中的相关模式。这两届会议中共和党都占多数，并通过了限制性堕胎法案，但在避孕的公共资金方面却有显著差异。
我们证明，在这两届会议中，计划生育问题上的投票差异不能完全归因于党派关系。然而，随着时间的推移，堕胎和避孕的政治立场已经趋同，而且——至少对民主党人来说——2011年选区特征与计划生育立法投票行为之间的相关性明显高于2003年。这些转变部分是由来自美国与墨西哥边境附近高贫困、拉丁裔占多数选区的立法者推动的。
计划生育政策最近的巨大转变不仅仅是简单的党派分歧。随着堕胎和避孕的政治立场趋同，出现了越来越敌视生殖健康且对低收入少数族裔女性影响尤大的政策。
计划生育政策最近的转变限制了女性获得避孕和堕胎服务的机会，但很少有研究探讨这种转变发生的原因。本文分析了得克萨斯州限制性政策投票行为背后的因素。识别这些因素有助于我们更好地理解我们这个领域当前的政治氛围。
