Role of Religious Beliefs in Polarization of Abortion Attitudes in Poland

In 2020, Poland's Constitutional Tribunal imposed a near-total abortion ban, a decision strongly influenced by the ruling far-right Law and Justice (PiS) party and backed by fundamentalist religious organizations. This ruling sparked some of the largest protests in Poland's recent history, revealing deep-seated tensions between those who view morality as fixed and others who see it as flexible and context-dependent.

While religious beliefs have long shaped public opinion on abortion in Poland, the Constitutional Tribunal's decision may have intensified this polarization. Does the "culture wars" hypothesis accurately capture the divide in abortion attitudes between conflicting religious identities? Alternatively, could the radicalization of abortion laws primarily reflect the views of a minority of religious fundamentalists while the majority of the public holds more moderate opinions? Exploring these questions in the Polish context is important, given the simultaneous trends of increasing secularization and the rise of far-right sentiments.

To empirically test the "culture wars" hypothesis in Poland, I will compare abortion attitudes among individuals with various religious identities using data from representative surveys conducted before (N=1,104) and after (N=993) the Constitutional Tribunal's decision. This study will contribute to the discussion on the utility of the "culture wars" framework for understanding divisions over moral issues within the European context.