Current Events > Study finds libertarians tend to support reproductive autonomy for men but not f

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https://www.psypost.org/2023/01/new-study-finds-libertarians-tend-to-support-reproductive-autonomy-for-men-but-not-for-women-64912

New research provides evidence that libertarians in the United States tend to prioritize mens reproductive autonomy at the expense of womens. The study, published in Political Psychology, found that libertarianism was associated with both opposition to womens right to an abortion and support for mens right to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy.

Libertarianism is a political philosophy that centers around the concept that each individual should be free to live their life in whatever way they choose, as long as other peoples rights are respected. Libertarians view the government as nothing more than a tool for protecting peoples fundamental rights; anything beyond this should arguably be done locally and voluntarily by individuals. The authors of the new study sought to investigate how libertarianism translates into attitudes to abortion policy.

Both abortion and libertarianism are concepts that illustrate the divide between abstract, philosophical ideas (e.g., freedom; morality; personhood) and the complexities that arise when you try to translate these abstractions into peoples real, complicated lives, said study author Jocelyn Chalmers, a PhD student and associate lecturer at the University of Kent in Canterbury.
Since no society in our world today follows a strictly libertarian governing model, its easy for libertarianisms subscribers to suggest that prioritizing freedom (or their concept of it) above all else would lead to easy solutions for all of our problems research like this allows us to interrogate that idea by highlighting that freedom is far from a simple concept in practice.

To examine the link between libertarianism and attitudes about womens reproductive autonomy, Chalmers and her colleagues conducted a series of two studies that presented a variety of different questionnaires to participants in a randomized order. The first study included 296 U.S. adults recruited through the online research platform Prolific. The second study sought to replicate the findings in a larger sample of participants recruited from social media. To this end, the researchers recruited an additional sample of 580 U.S. adults.

The researchers found that those who described themselves politically as libertarian were less likely to support a womans right to have an abortion. To assess support for abortion rights, the researchers asked the participants whether they believed it should be possible for a pregnant woman to obtain a legal abortion under seven different circumstances, such as if the family has a very low income and cannot afford any more children.

Libertarians were also more supportive of mens right to deny their partners abortions and to remove their financial support for unwanted children. In other words, they were more likely to agree with statements such as A woman should not be allowed to have an abortion if the man involved really wants to keep his unborn child and If a child is born against the fathers will, he should not be obligated to support the child financially.

I think the average person should take away that the idea of freedom that libertarians subscribe to, which sounds attractive and is often wielded by politicians as though it has a single objective definition, does not actually translate into straightforward policy prescriptions, Chalmers told PsyPost. This is particularly true in a world in which we are so interdependent on one another and in which those who tend to be in charge of both philosophising about these concepts and creating policies around them may be at least partially shielded from the messy realities of this interdependence due to a lack of experience with pregnancy, childbirth, and even interpersonal care work in general.

This lack of straightforward application is illustrated by our findings, in that libertarian identification was associated with opposition to womens abortion rights, and support for mens right both to prevent women from having abortions (male veto), and to withdraw financial support for a child when women refuse to terminate the pregnancy (financial abortion). Notably, our analyses suggested that hostile sexism i.e., sexist antipathy may account for this effect, Chalmers added.
People who score high on measures of hostile sexism endorse statements such as When women lose to men in a fair competition, they typically complain about being discriminated against.
While I wasnt surprised to learn that libertarianism was positively associated with hostile sexism the resentful, distrustful, openly adversarial component of Glick and Fiskes (1996) Ambivalent Sexism Theory I was surprised that libertarianism also shared a positive association with the superficially positive component of this theory, benevolent sexism, Chalmers explained.

Benevolent sexism portrays women as more moral and refined than men, and entitled (if they properly adhere to their gendered role) to mens protection. Given that benevolent sexism imposes this duty upon men to protect and provide for women, I was surprised that libertarians who value freedom and autonomy above all else would be willing to endorse this.

i don't support F either.

fuck F.

ugh botched the title

didn't realize it got cutoff

Whenever talk about women's reproductive rights start making the news there's almost always discussion about financial abortions that quickly follow. Glad to see a study confirm what we already knew though.

Study finds libertarians are hypocritical misogynistic pieces of shit

Sometimes you may claim to already know something but it is good to have a professional study to support that knowledge so you can cite it.

For a second I read that as Librarians

Baha05 posted...

For a second I read that as Librarians

I read it as Liberians

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


They didn't, but it's nice to see empiracal evidence for it now lol.

So they are against abortions, but at the same time hate the idea of financial support for children? Huh ok

This is a weird comparison. There's a big difference between the two, like that one involves the baby's life and one doesn't lol. No matter how you feel about it it's pretty logical to support one and not the other beyond just the sex of the person involved.

HHH_is_the_game posted...

This is a weird comparison. There's a big difference between the two, like that one involves the baby's life and one doesn't lol. No matter how you feel about it it's pretty logical to support one and not the other beyond just the sex of the person involved.

I suppose the one involving the baby's life is the one about financial child support? Because a clump of cell is not a living baby...

Too many people are pro life until you are born

epik_fail1 posted...

I suppose the one involving the baby's life is the one about financial child support? Because a clump of cell is not a living baby...

Too many people are pro life until you are born

There's no point in arguing this since it's hard to say for sure. I don't care what side people fall on in the debate, it's really hard to determine when a clump of cells is a human life. I certainly couldn't give a firm answer.

libertarianism is selfishness justified with crazy mental gymnastics

USLP has been infiltrated by "Pauls" (in the biblical sense), trying to re-inject the old "values" into the platform. I don't know if this is in anticipation of a bunch of disgruntled republicans moving in, or just an attempt to poison the party.

As far as I care it's dead simple: You have no more right to occupy a womb without permission than you do to occupy a couch without permission.

Baha05 posted...

For a second I read that as Librarians

Librarians don't support reproducing in the library, no.