Public Attitudes Toward Legal Abortion,Euthanasia,Suicide,and Capital Punishment

Abstract

Recent research suggests that public attitudes toward capital punishment are fundamentally value expressive rather than instrumental. This study explores the value-expressive basis of capital punishment attitudes by analyzing the relationships between various domains of life and the law. Logistic regression of data from the 1972–2012 cumulative data file of the General Social Survey was used to analyze whether composite variables for opposition to legal abortion, euthanasia, and suicide could predict capital punishment attitudes. Findings show that main effects of opposition to legal abortion, suicide, and euthanasia increased the odds of opposing capital punishment. Among 3 two-way interaction terms, only opposition to suicide and euthanasia was significant, and it was associated with increased support for capital punishment rather than opposition. These findings lend qualified support to the consistent life ethic framework and value-expressive basis of capital punishment attitudes.

Keywords

capital punishment opinion abortion suicide euthanasia consistent life ethic

Capital punishment continues to be of the most prominent and contentions sociolegal issues in the United States. It is one of the few such issues around which people coalesce and form group, if not individual, identity. Religious institutions and political parties often treat capital punishment as a central part of what defines them and their mission. We often categorize states and regions of the country based on their apparent support or opposition to capital punishment. The same is true of capital punishment in a global context. Much continues to be made of the United States’ place in the world as the lone remaining Western nation to employ the death penalty. The United States consistently finds itself in the company of China, Iran, and Sudan, to name a few, in terms of the number of executions carried out in any given year (Death Penalty Information Center, 2016). Despite concerns over wrongful convictions, inflated costs, potentially harmful executions methods, and other critical issues, the death penalty perseveres for the time being. The constitutionality of lethal injection protocol has been unsuccessfully challenged in several recent cases ( Baze v. Rees, 2008; Glossip v. Gross, 2015). Concern over inflated costs may have been a temporary historical effect of the recent “great recession” as state and local governments struggled to balance budgets (The Economist, 2009). Wrongful convictions and the threat of executing innocent persons often prompts discussion of procedural safeguards that might mitigate the risk of mistakenly applying the death penalty rather than eradicating the policy entirely.

The resiliency of the death penalty in America is arguably due in large part to the fact that a majority of Americans have consistently supported capital punishment (Bohm, 2014). Indeed, public opinion is a powerful driving force in the administration of capital punishment. Two of the most significant changes in the modern era of capital punishment were caused, inter alia, by apparent changes in public opinion. In 2002 and 2005, the Supreme Court categorically exempted the intellectually disabled ( Atkins v. Virginia, 2002) and juveniles ( Roper v. Simmons, 2005) from execution. The Court’s rationale in both cases was based on the Eighth Amendment’s evolving standards of decency doctrine. In the Atkins ruling, the Court observed that, beginning with Georgia in 1986, 21 states and the federal government had outlawed execution of the intellectually disabled. The majority of the justices thus ruled that a national consensus, reflected by state legislative activity, had developed against executing people with intellectual disabilities. The Court also relied upon the evolving standards of decency doctrine in its exemption of juveniles from capital punishment 3 years later in Roper. A majority of the justices identified a national trend away from subjecting persons who were under the age of 18 at the time of their crimes to the death penalty. Specifically, they observed that, since 1989 when they had last visited the issue, five states had unilaterally abolished execution for juveniles and none had established the practice. Further, only 6 of the 20 states that retained the death penalty for juveniles had actually executed a juvenile capital offender.

These developments highlight the impact that public opinion has on the administration of capital punishment. The public’s emerging distain for executing juveniles and the intellectually disabled, at least in part, prompted policy reversals. These effects of public opinion on capital punishment are in addition to those exercised everyday through local, state, and national political processes. Identifying and understanding the underlying sources of people’s capital punishment opinions are therefore imperative for both scholars and practitioners. The empirical record is quite clear as to “who” tends to support capital punishment. Supporters of capital punishment are disproportionately White (Bobo & Johnson, 2004; Cochran & Chamlin, 2006; Johnson, 2001), male (Cochran & Sanders, 2009; Robbers, 2006; Stack, 2000), Protestant (Grasmick & McGill, 1994; Sandys & McGarrell, 1994; Young, 1992), politically conservative (Longmire, 1996; Young, 1991, 1992), and married (Bohm, 2014; Fox, Radelet, & Bonsteel, 1990–1991). These findings have been consistently observed in nearly every modern study of capital punishment attitudes. The literature is less clear, however, as to why people tend to support or oppose capital punishment. The research presented here was designed to explore the underlying value systems and concomitant attitudes that buoy public opinions of capital punishment. This article presents the results of a regression analysis of the main and interactive effects of public attitudes toward other “life issues”—legal abortion, suicide, and euthanasia—on capital punishment attitudes.

Underlying Sources of Capital Punishment Opinion

A fundamental issue regarding sources of capital punishment opinions is whether people’s attitudes toward the death penalty are instrumental or expressive. That is, are public opinions based on the utility of the death penalty system or the moral implications of executing capital murderers? This is best represented by research on the Marshall hypothesis. In his concurring opinion in Furman v. Georgia (1976), Justice Thurgood Marshall posited that support for capital punishment is generally a function of ignorance about its effects and that support would wane considerably if the public were better informed about the pragmatic realities of capital punishment. Specifically, he cited the lack of a deterrent effect, increased costs, race and gender discrimination, and the risk of executing innocents as likely to change people’s opinions and generate opposition to the death penalty.¹

The findings of several initial studies regarding the Marshall hypothesis found support for the basic assertion that information regarding the administration and application of the death penalty would dissipate support. Using a classical experimental design, Sarat and Vidmar (1976) found that support among the experimental group dropped from 62% to 42% after exposure to information about the death penalty system. No such change was observed among the control group. In a methodologically improved replication of the Sarat and Vidmar (1976) study, Vidmar and Dittenhoffer (1981) again found a precipitous decline in support for the death penalty following the introduction of information on the death penalty system. Specifically, the experimental stimulus decreased support from 48% to 24% and increased opposition from 33% to 71%. The results of these early studies suffer from several methodological shortcoming.²

Subsequent research has found less support for the notion that death penalty attitudes are based upon and thus influenced by practical concerns. Bohm, Clark, and Aveni (1991) found qualified support for the supposition that knowledge of the death penalty system generates opposition. Following exposure to various sources of information on the death penalty system, opposition increased in three of the four conditions.³ There was, however, a substantial proportion of the sample for whom death penalty support was based on revenge-oriented retribution, and this subgroup was not significantly influenced by the stimulus. Bohm and colleagues conducted follow-up studies of the same subjects 3 and 10 years after the initial experiment and found that death penalty opinions rebounded to pretest positions (Bohm & Vogel, 2004; Bohm, Vogel, & Maisto, 1993). Most recently, Lee, Bohm, and Pazzani (2014) found that exposure to information about the death penalty did not affect support even among subjects who scored low on a retribution index. These findings indicate that death penalty attitudes are based primarily on emotion and values rather than rational pragmatism (Bohm, 2014).

In arguably the most comprehensive analysis of the Marshall hypothesis to date, Vollum, Longmire, and Buffington-Vollum (2006) analyzed the extent to which death penalty attitudes are value expressive or instrumental. Subjects were asked to report their level of confidence in five separate aspects of the administration of the death penalty and whether they supported a moratorium until these administrative aspects could be improved.⁴ Findings showed that a majority of respondents who lacked confidence in the death penalty system (68%) and supported a moratorium in at least one condition (73%) nevertheless maintained support for the death penalty. The researchers thus concluded that death penalty attitudes are largely value expressive. That is, attitudes toward capital punishment are not based on its instrumental value per se but are an expression of “deeply held beliefs and values” (Vollum, Longmire, & Bugginton-Vollum, 2006, p. 541). In a subsequent study, Vollum, Mallicoat, and Buffington-Vollum (2009) found that information critical of the death penalty did not significantly impact support, again suggesting that death penalty attitudes are value expressive.

In an attempt to identify underlying values, some research has explored the relationships between personality constructs and capital punishment attitudes. Findings suggest that supporters of capital punishment, and punitive sentences in general, are disproportionately authoritarian (Carroll, Perkowitz, Lurigio, & Weaver, 1987; Hagan, 1975) and autocratic (Valliant & Oliver, 1997). Capital punishment support and general punitiveness are also positively associated with dispositional attribution styles (Robbers, 2004; Sosis, 1974).⁵ Results regarding the relationship between extroversion and capital punishment support are mixed, with some finding a positive association (McKelvie, 1983; McKelvie & Daoussis, 1982; Robbers, 2006) and others finding no significant relationship (Lester, Hadley, & Lucas, 1990; Lester, Maggioncalda-Aretz, & Stark, 1997). Several findings suggest people who score high on a neuroticism scale are more likely to support the death penalty (Lester et al., 1990; Robbers, 2006). Lastly, openness (i.e., interest in theoretical and philosophical debate and alternative thinking) and agreeableness (i.e., high levels of interpersonal skill and sympathy) have been associated with opposition to capital punishment (Robbers, 2006).

Other studies have explored the relationship between public opinions of capital punishment and other domains of life and the law, such as legal abortion, suicide, and euthanasia. This line of inquiry is guided by an assumption that the value system underlying capital punishment attitudes should influence attitudes toward the legality of abortion, suicide, and euthanasia as well, given that all these domains govern the right to voluntarily end life. That is, value systems may act as a fundamental moral structure which transcends specific topics and the nuanced contextual issues of each. Sawyer (1982) first articulated two competing hypotheses on the potential relationships between these domains of life and the law. First, attitudes are manifestations of sociopolitical values in which context is largely decisive. Thus, attitudes toward capital punishment, suicide, euthanasia, and abortion would be inconsistent and driven by the notion that, for instance, abortion involves the taking of innocent life whereas capital punishment does not. Second, attitudes toward capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide are manifestations of latent morality that absolutely govern the right, or lack thereof, to voluntarily end life. In this view, attitudes would be consistent across each domain. Consistent opposition to any and all such issues is commonly referred to as the “consistent life ethic.”

The consistent life ethic was first articulated by Bernardin (1983) in a lecture at Fordham University. He argued that a belief in the fundamental sanctity of life should influence opposition to any and all issues that involve voluntarily taking life. Although the life ethic has come to incorporate a wide array of issues, such as war, social welfare, and others, abortion, suicide, euthanasia, and capital punishment have been central issues in the framework since its inception (Bernardin, 1998; Hipsher, 2007). Although it began in the Catholic Church, the consistent life ethic has been adopted by a variety of secular, political, and other religious organizations. For instance, the American Solidarity Party, Secular Pro-Life, and Democrats for Life of America are among the groups who belong to what is commonly referred to as the Consistent Life Network (2016).

Not all of the research on this topic has analyzed whether a consistent life ethic exists, per se. Some studies have identified particular attitudinal intersections and explored the factors that can best account for seemingly inconsistent attitudes toward life and the law, primarily support for the death penalty and opposition to abortion. Initial findings suggested that an orientation toward punitiveness is most prevalent among those who oppose abortion and support the death penalty (Claggett & Shafer, 1991; Johnson & Tamney, 1988). These findings were called into question because the authors mapped public opinion on these issues instead of conducting empirical analyses of the significance of their association (Cook, 1998). However, subsequent analyses lent support to their claim. Cook (1998) and Wiecko and Gau (2008) identified respondents in the General Social Survey (GSS) and American National Election Survey, respectively, who expressed support for the death penalty and opposition to legal abortion. Both studies found that punitiveness predicted these seemingly inconsistent attitudes.⁶ Cook (1998) reasoned that an orientation toward punitiveness leads to a desire to punish those who take innocent life via abortion and capital murder.

Unnever, Bartkowski, and Cullen (2010) used GSS data to explore the role of God imagery in fostering consistent opposition to both death penalty and abortion. Findings showed that an expressed close relationship with a loving God significantly predicted opposition to the death penalty and abortion. Regarding the relationship between attitudes toward life issues, these intersectional studies are limited in at least one important respect. By identifying certain attitudinal intersections as dependent variables, they fail to identify whether there are significant relationships between attitudes. That is, they each identify factors that predict an (in)consistent life ethic among respondents who harbor such opinions but not whether these opinions are significantly related in the aggregate.

Studies that have tested whether attitudes toward life and the law issues are consistent have yielded mixed results. Two of the earliest studies of attitudinal associations found no evidence of a generalized pro-life position as opposition to abortion had no significant relationship with attitudes toward other human life issues, including capital punishment (Granberg, 1978, p. 421; Granberg & Granberg, 1980). Tamney, Johnson, and Burton (1992) similarly found that a measure of “all life,” which asked respondents whether capital punishment and euthanasia should be eliminated to preserve life, had no direct or indirect relationship with abortion attitudes. Several factor analyses have uniformly found two factors in respondents’ attitudes toward abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment, with abortion and euthanasia loading on one factor and capital punishment on the other (Beswick, 1970; Cleghorn, 1986; Kalish, 1963 in MacNair). Interpretations of these results showing no attitudinal consistency across issues have varied considerably. These observed inconsistencies may be due to differences in the way people perceive personal morality versus social/political policies (Bogue, 2008; Cleghorn, 1986), death caused by oneself or death of another (Lester et al., 1990), or proactive versus reactive killing (Beswick, 1970).

Other studies have found significant relationships between attitudes toward these issues. Kelly and Kudlac (2000) analyzed the relationship between public attitudes regarding abortion and capital punishment and found that survey respondents who expressed opposition to abortion were twice as likely to oppose the death penalty compared to those who supported abortion. Perl and McClintok (2001) also found evidence of a consistent life ethic although their model did not include capital punishment attitudes. Respondents in their study who opposed abortion were significantly more likely than supporters of abortion to oppose both suicide and euthanasia. Jelen (1988) found that opposition to abortion and euthanasia were significantly related among subjects across a variety of religious affiliations.

Despite the important contributions of these studies to our understanding of the value structures underlying attitudes toward these issues, each is a partial test at best. That is, each study includes two or three of the issues pertinent to attitudinal consistency. None have analyzed the relationships between attitudes toward abortion, euthanasia, suicide, and capital punishment. Moreover, none have analyzed interaction effects between variables. The study presented here was designed to fill this gap by analyzing the main and interactive effects of attitudes toward abortion, euthanasia, and suicide, on attitudes toward capital punishment.

Data and Methods

Data for this study come from the 1972–2012 cumulative data file of the GSS. This file is comprised of 29 independent surveys conducted annually or biennially during this 40-year time frame. Surveys were administered to full probability samples of English-speaking adults living in the continental United States (N = 57,061). Measures of support for capital punishment were included in each of the 29 surveys. However, the wording of the item designed to gauge support changed. In 1972 and 1973, respondents were asked whether they were “in favor” of the death penalty for convicted murderers. From 1974 to 2012, respondents were asked whether they “favor or oppose” the death penalty for convicted murderers. Given the superiority of the second item, only data from the 1974 to 2012 surveys were included. These surveys included 53,944 respondents. Prior to conducting any analyses, all missing data were imputed using a single imputation in order to retain as many cases as possible and mitigate bias that might result from missing data. Some data, that is, “don’t know” responses, were subsequently coded as missing as described below and listwise deletion ultimately pared the sample to 36,917.

Dependent and Independent Variables

Capital punishment

Response categories for the item that asked whether respondents favored or opposed the death penalty for convicted murderers included favor, oppose, and don’t know. A dichotomous variable was created to indicate whether respondents favored (0) or opposed (1) capital punishment. Don’t know responses, which accounted for approximately 6% of the sample, were coded as missing.

Abortion

A composite variable was constructed from 6 items that asked respondents whether they favored legalized abortion under different circumstances (α = .89). These items tapped support for legal abortion if there is a strong chance of serious defect in the baby, if she is married and does not want any more children, if the family has a very low income and cannot afford any more children, if she became pregnant as a result of rape, if she is not married and does not want to marry the man, and if the woman wants it for any reason.⁷ A dichotomous variable was created to indicate whether respondents favored (0) legal abortion in at least one circumstance or opposed (1) abortion under all six circumstances. Don’t know responses were coded as missing.

Suicide

A composite variable was similarly constructed from 4 items that asked respondents whether people have the right to end their own lives under different circumstances (α = .87). These items tapped support for a “right to suicide” if a person has an incurable disease, has gone bankrupt, has dishonored his or her family, and is tired of living. A dichotomous variable was created to indicate whether respondents favored (0) a right to suicide in at least one circumstance or opposed (1) a right to suicide under all four circumstances. Don’t know responses were coded as missing.

Euthanasia

The GSS data file includes 2 items that tapped attitudes about the legality of euthanasia. However, one of these items was included in only four iterations of the survey (1977, 1978, 1982, and 1983). This item was thus excluded from the analysis. The remaining item asked respondents the following: “when a person has a disease that cannot be cured, do you think doctors should be allowed by law to end the patient’s life by some painless means if the patient and his family request it?” Coding indicates support (0) and opposition (1) to legal euthanasia. Don’t know responses were coded as missing.

Covariates

Several demographic variables were included to control for the effects of known correlates of death penalty support. These include respondents’ race (White = 0, Black = 1),⁸ age as measured in years, education (high school or less = 0, posthigh school = 1), sex (male = 0, female = 1), marital status (currently married = 0, Other = 1), and religious affiliation (Protestant = 0, Other = 1). Religious salience, as measured by how frequently respondents attended religious services, was included as a scale ranging from never (0) to more than once a week (8).

Several attitudinal measures were also included in the model to control for confounding effects. Given that prior research suggests that support for capital punishment is linked to a “just deserts” perspective (Cook, 1998; Wiecko & Gau, 2008), a measure of the respondents’ punitiveness was included. This measure reflects whether the respondents’ felt that courts deal with criminals too harshly (1), about right (2), or not harshly enough (3). Fear crime has also been found to be positively associated with capital punishment support (Keil & Vito, 1991). Thus, a variable that asked whether respondents were afraid to walk alone at night (no = 0, yes = 1) was included. Lastly, a 7-point scale that measured political ideology from extremely liberal (1) to extremely conservative (7) was included to control for the known association between political conservatism and capital punishment support.

Analytical Strategy

Because the dependent variable is dichotomous, logistic regression was used to analyze relationships between variables. The model includes the variables described above as well as 3 two-way interaction terms for each combination of the independent variables. After the results were obtained, the analysis was conducted separately for each of the four decades in which the data were collected, with data from 2012 included in the 2000–2010 range. There was some concern that the results might be a function of a narrow range of years within the data. The results of these separate analyses, which are not provided here, were consistent across each decade. Neither the direction nor magnitude of the effects in each decade was notably different from the results obtained from the general data set.

Results

Table 1 presents percentages of death penalty support overall and across covariates, as well as the frequency of covariates. Overall, 28% of respondents opposed capital punishment. Over 1 in 10 respondents (12.6%) opposed legal abortion across all six conditions. Almost one third (32.5%) of respondents opposed a right to suicide across all four conditions. A full 29% of respondents opposed legal euthanasia. Finally, approximately 6% (6.4) of respondents harbor a consistent life ethic regarding the independent variables, having expressed universal opposition to abortion, suicide, and euthanasia.

Table 1.

Percentage of Death Penalty Support and Opposition Across Covariates.

Variables	Support DP	Oppose DP	n
Overall	71.9%	28.1%	50,620
Education
High school or less	73.4	26.6	28,817
Post high school	70.3	29.7	25,127
Marital status
Currently married	75.7	24.3	28,535
Other	67.6	32.4	25,409
Age^a
<30	69.3	30.7	11,377
30–45	72.6	27.4	17,917
46–60	72.3	27.7	12,462
>60	73.0	27.0	12,183
Sex
Males	76.9	23.1	23,638
Females	67.9	32.1	30,306
Race
Black	48.3	51.7	7,482
White	76.3	23.7	43,694
Religion
Protestant	73.2	26.8	31,635
Other	70.1	29.9	22,309
Fear of crime
Yes	69.7	30.3	21,835
No	73.5	26.5	31,725
Punitiveness
Too harsh	42.5	57.5	2,753
About right	59.5	40.5	5,846
Not harsh enough	77.7	22.3	36,263
Political views^a
Liberal	61.0	39.0	13,093
Moderate	74.2	25.8	18,494
Conservative	79.2	20.8	16,289
Religious salience^a
Never attend	73.1	26.9	9,066
Attend annually	75.3	24.7	18,066
Attend monthly	70.1	29.9	8,730
Attend weekly	68.6	31.4	17,826
Suicide
Support	70.0	30.0	33,606
Oppose	62.2	37.8	16,215
Abortion
Support	89.5	10.5	41,350
Oppose	82.7	17.3	5,970
Euthanasia
Support	75.6	24.4	36,711
Oppose	60.7	39.3	15,004

Note. DP = death penalty.

^aThe response categories for these three covariates are collapsed in this table. Age was collapsed by calculating quartiles and rounding to the nearest multiple of five.

Table 2 presents the standardized logistic regression coefficients, odds ratios, and standard errors for the model. Findings show that, net of other variables, Black respondents were more likely to oppose the death penalty. Females and respondents who were not married as well as those with a posthigh school education were more likely to oppose capital punishment. Respondents who expressed less punitive attitudes and those who self-identified as politically liberal were more likely to oppose capital punishment. Regarding religious affiliation and salience, Protestants and persons who less regularly attended religious services were more likely to support capital punishment. Fear of crime and age failed to predict capital punishment opinions within the range of statistical significance.

Table 2.

Results of Logistic Regression Analysis of Public Opinion of Legal Abortion, Euthanasia, Suicide, and Capital Punishment.

Variables	β	Odds	SE
Abortion	0.523**	1.687	0.068
Suicide	0.118*	1.125	0.042
Euthanasia	0.702**	2.017	0.045
Age	0.001	1.001	0.001
Education	0.210**	1.233	0.026
Sex	0.455**	1.577	0.027
Race	1.067**	2.906	0.035
Married	0.170**	1.186	0.026
Political views	–0.263**	0.768	0.010
Punitiveness	–0.476**	0.621	0.018
Religious affiliation	0.316**	1.372	0.027
Religious salience	0.028**	1.028	0.005
Fear	–0.032	0.969	0.027
Abortion × Suicide	–0.044	0.957	0.085
Abortion × Euthanasia	–0.082	0.921	0.088
Euthanasia × Suicide	–0.197*	0.821	0.063
R ²	.168
N	36,917

Note. SE = standard error.

*p < .01. **p < .001.

Regarding the independent variables, findings show that attitudes regarding the legality of abortion, suicide, and euthanasia each independently predicted attitudes about the legality of capital punishment net of controls. Moreover, the direction of this prediction is consistent across each variable. Opposition to abortion, suicide, and euthanasia independently increased the probability of opposition to capital punishment. Results show that the interaction terms were less apt to predict capital punishment attitudes. The only two-way effect that was statistically significant was the interaction between euthanasia and suicide. The direction of the effect is opposite that of the main effects of each variable. That is, respondents who opposed both euthanasia and suicide were more likely to support capital punishment. The magnitude of the effect was quite modest, however. Consistent opposition to euthanasia and suicide increased the odds of supporting capital punishment by roughly 18%.

Discussion

The findings reported here should help clarify some of the ambiguity in the empirical literature on both consistent life ethic and value systems underpinning capital punishment attitudes. First, studies that have directly tested the consistent life ethic are few and have yielded mixed results. Several have found partial evidence of a consistent life ethic in identifying relationships between opposition to abortion and opposition to the death penalty (Kelly & Kudlac, 2000) and euthanasia (Jelen, 1988) as well as opposition to suicide and euthanasia (Perl & McClintok, 2001). Other studies have found no relationship between attitudes toward these issues (Granberg & Granberg, 1980; Tamney, Johnson, & Burton, 1992). Each extant study suffers from shortcomings that are addressed in the research presented here.

First, Tamney et al. (1992) and Perl and McClintock’s (2001) research rely on survey data collected in a single year. Attitudes toward heavily politicized and morally laden issues such abortion, euthanasia, suicide, and capital punishment are notably susceptible to historical threats to validity. Events such as political changes, notorious crimes, and moral panics can cause pulse effects in public attitudes toward the issues explored here.⁹ The results presented here derive from data collected episodically from 1974 to 2012 and therefore should be considered more robust. Second, as previously discussed in brief, each study is a partial test of the consistent life ethic. Consistency implies a broader life ethic that extends beyond two or three issues. The study presented here represents the most comprehensive test of the consistent life ethic to date by incorporating each of the major domains of life and the law.

The results lend partial support to the consistent life ethic framework. Opposition to abortion, suicide, and euthanasia increased the odds of opposing capital punishment net of controls. From the perspective of capital punishment attitudes and the values that sustain them, the results of this study initially seem counterintuitive. It may appear more plausible that opponents of legal abortion in particular, if not euthanasia and suicide as well, would be more likely to support capital punishment given the extent to which we attribute public attitudes toward these issues to sociopolitical ideologies. Indeed, some of these topics have been central issues in political identity and liberal–conservative adversarialism over the past 40 years. Currently, and at varying other times in recent history, opposition to abortion, for instance, is a prominent characteristic of political conservatism. Capital punishment has maintained a similarly prominent position in sociopolitical discourse. Although many prominent politicians across different parties have expressed support for capital punishment, there exist common suppositions that capital punishment opposition is a liberal value. The notion that attitudes toward these issues are buoyed by sociopolitical values would imply that opposition to the independent variables in this study, most notably abortion, should predict support for the death penalty. This would be a consistent manifestation of conservative values. However, the current study finds consistent bivariate opposition to the independent variables and capital punishment. There are two plausible explanations for these findings. Each fundamentally rests on the notion that public opinions of these contentious issues are more multifaceted and nuanced than the sociopolitical model suggests.

First, it is possible that abstract support for issues such as legal abortion and euthanasia tend to dissipate in specific contexts. Although the survey item that measured attitudes toward capital punishment was general and abstract,¹⁰ items that measured attitudes toward legal abortion and euthanasia cited specific circumstances. For instance, respondents were asked whether they favor or oppose legal abortion if women were raped, poor, or unmarried to name a few.¹¹ There may be a substantial portion of the sample who support legal abortion, suicide, and euthanasia as an abstract idea yet tend toward opposition when confronted with specific scenarios. This would imply that, at best, sociopolitical values have a superficial influence on public attitudes toward these issues. People may digress from their general positions when confronted with scenarios that trigger the consideration of actual people voluntarily ending life. Thus, concrete attitudes toward abortion and euthanasia may be oriented toward the protection of life rather than some abstract political dogma.

Second, sociopolitical ideologies may not influence attitudes toward these domains of life and the law to the extent that is presently apparent. While there are certainly segments of the population who adhere to political value systems, these may be vocal minorities whose attitudes are overgeneralized to the population at large. That is, the platforms of political parties and/or the stances of highly visible politicians, constituent groups, and religious leaders who disproportionately proselytize about the rightfulness or wrongfulness of the issues explored here may not be representative of the American public. The value system(s) that shape attitudes toward these contentious and grave issues may be an internal, personal sense of morality rather than a derivative of some external construct. Moreover, this would imply that a substantial portion of the public’s personal morality is relatively impervious to the solicitations of external moral structures. Again, at least as far as bivariate opposition to abortion, suicide, euthanasia, and capital punishment is concerned, people’s value systems are resilient and oriented toward the protection of life across issues that arguably have little else in common.

The findings show, however, that this consistency is only among bivariate relationships. The two interaction terms comprised of abortion and the other independent variables failed to predict capital punishment attitudes within a degree of statistical significance. The interaction effect of opposition to suicide and euthanasia significantly predicted support for capital punishment. These findings conflict with the consistent life ethic framework, as least as it has been articulated by Bernardin (1983, 1998) and others. This framework is based on the notion of a “seamless garment” in which a fundamental orientation toward the protection of life should lead to consistent opposition to any and all issues governing the right to voluntarily end life. It is important to note, however, that the findings also conflict with Sawyer’s (1982) alternative hypothesis, that is, that sociopolitical values underlie attitudes toward these issue. This hypothesis posits that opposition to abortion, suicide, and euthanasia would predict support for capital punishment. The results of the main effects of the independent variables clearly do not reflect this hypothesis. Moreover, except for the interaction between opposition to suicide and euthanasia, the interaction terms show no significant effect in either direction.

That the two interaction terms including abortion exhibited no relationship with capital punishment attitudes reflect work by Bogue (2008). She suggests that many Americans do not, in general, believe that these various issues are related. Abortion, euthanasia, suicide, and capital punishment may have little-to-nothing in common beyond the fact that, at their most basic level, they each involve the right to voluntarily end life. Thus, attitudes toward each issue may be driven by different ideological or ethical frameworks. There are several possible explanations for the finding that opposition to suicide and euthanasia predicted support for capital punishment. Suicide and euthanasia are issues that can take on a sense of personal morality (Bogue, 2008; MacNair, 2008). They each govern the right for people to take their own life. Capital punishment, on the other hand, is a social policy that involves the killing of others. The inmates are facing execution because they ended the life of another person. Thus, the apparent inconsistency observed in this study may reflect a notion that people feel life is sacred and cannot be ended voluntarily. If it is, as in the case of capital murder, then people forfeit their lives. In this vein, it could be argued that a somewhat peculiar orientation toward life may underlie these attitudes. To be sure, these different findings are difficult to interpret. Much more research is needed to tease out the fundamental reasons why people support or oppose these issues.

There are several limitations to this study. First, it was not possible, given the GSS coding scheme to include control variables for income or Southern residence. Some research suggests that each is associated with death penalty opinions such that higher income (Bohm, 2014; Britt, 1998) and residency in the South (Barkan & Cohn, 2010) are both positively associated with death penalty support. The GSS data set contains categorical measures of family income and respondent income. However, the upper and lower limits of each category were changed every few iterations of the survey. For instance, the upper income category in the 1998 GSS for annual family income was “$110,000 or over.” In the 2006 survey, the upper income category was changed to “$150,000 or over.” Thus, there is no consistent measure of income in the cumulative GSS data set. It is unlikely, however, that including income as a control variable would substantively alter the findings of the current study. Past research has shown that variation of death penalty opinions among income categories is small and that education and income may be collinear (Bohm, 2014; Smith, 1975).

Residency is often included, typically as a “southern, not southern” dichotomy (see, e.g., Britt, 1998; Cochran & Sanders, 2009; Unnever, Bartkowski, & Cullen, 2010), because death penalty support may be higher among people living in the southern United States where it is disproportionately practiced. The GSS data contain measures of residence (e.g., at birth and during the time of the interview). However, the coding scheme precludes the use of these variables in the current study. The GSS residency data are coded for traditional regions, such as “South Atlantic” and “West South Central.” What is problematic is that traditionally active death penalty states, such as Texas and Florida, are included in different regional categories. Moreover, some active death penalty states are collated into categories with other states that seldom, if ever, utilize the death penalty. For instance, Florida, which has carried out the fourth most executions (90) since 1976, is included with Maryland, which carried out only five executions since 1976 prior to abolishing the death penalty in 2013 (Death Penalty Information Center, 2015). Thus, the data preclude creating a variable for southern residence that consistently reflects regional variations in death penalty usage and potential support. However, recent research suggests the notion that support for the death penalty is higher among people living in the South may be a myth or exaggerated or tied to a particular period of time.¹²

The most conspicuous limitation of the current study relates to the single-item, dichotomous dependent variable. The evolution of capital punishment opinion research has detailed the complexity of people’s opinions and the difficulty in accurately measuring them. Dichotomous “favor or oppose” questions fail to offer alternatives such as life without parole, life with parole, or restitution. Studies that incorporate sentencing alternatives show support may be lower than responses to dichotomous items suggests (Bohm, Clark, & Aveni, 1991; Bowers, Vandiver, & Dugan, 1994). Single-item measures are problematic because public support for capital punishment varies based on characteristics of the crime (Durham, Elrod, & Kincade, 1996), offender (Cochran, Boots, & Heide, 2003; Ellsworth & Gross, 1994), and victim (Applegate, Wright, Dunaway, Cullen, & Wooldredge, 1993; Durham et al., 1996). Studies that include several items or vignettes that incorporate contextual variables often yield different levels of support, both higher (Durham et al., 1996) and lower (Longmire, 1996) than single-item studies.

Ellsworth and Gross (1994) argue that these single-item, dichotomous measures have certain benefits. Most notably, the legal status of the death penalty is dependent upon generalized public support. The Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence makes clear that capital punishment must reflect society’s evolving standards of decency. Most recently, the Court ruled that executing juveniles ( Roper v. Simmons, 2005) and the mentally retarded ( Atkins v. Virginia, 2002) is unconstitutional due to the fact that a national consensus has developed against it. The results of dichotomous measures that ask respondents to take a clear position for or against capital punishment can be beneficial to gauging the general landscape of public support.

Lastly, although the current study is the most comprehensive analysis of the consistent life ethic to date, it is important to note that this is still a partial test. Bernardin (1998), who is often credited with advancing the consistent life ethic concept, included a broad array of social and political issues. He argues that a truly consistent life ethic would incorporate a variety of issues such as opposition to war and nuclear proliferation as well as support for welfare, health care, and civil rights into a seamless garment (p. 47). Although some of these issues have little in common beyond rhetoric, it is certainly possible that a consistent life ethic based on the concept of opposition to voluntarily taking life might incorporate opposition to war, for instance. The findings of this study do suggest, however, that extended investigations that incorporate these and other issues is potentially fruitful.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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