However, data access requests may be sent to In order to facilitate research transparency, we provide the study interview guide and codebook as Supporting Information files.įunding: This study was funded by the Center for Reproductive Health Research in the SouthEast ( ) with support from an anonymous foundation (to KSH). These data cannot be shared publicly, as the qualitative data presents potential risks and harms beyond those agreed to by study participants in the consent process and approved by the Emory University Institutional Review Board. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: Our data are comprised of transcripts from qualitative interviews with Protestant religious leaders in Georgia surrounding abortion attitudes and pastoral care. Received: JanuAccepted: JPublished: July 17, 2020Ĭopyright: © 2020 Dozier et al. PLoS ONE 15(7):Įditor: Jonathan Jong, Coventry University, UNITED KINGDOM (2020) Abortion attitudes, religious and moral beliefs, and pastoral care among Protestant religious leaders in Georgia. Additionally, many leaders offer misinformation about abortion when offering pastoral care.Ĭitation: Dozier JL, Hennink M, Mosley E, Narasimhan S, Pringle J, Clarke L, et al. Paradoxically, all leaders emphasized the importance of empathy and compassion for people who have unplanned pregnancies, yet only leaders whose attitudes were “pro-choice” or in the middle of the spectrum expressed an obligation to confront stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors towards people who experience abortion. Leaders emphasized not condoning abortion, yet being willing to emotionally support women because spiritual leaders are compelled to love and provide pastoral care. However, many religious leaders described a lack of preparation and training to have these conversations. Religious leaders described their pastoral care on abortion as “journeying with” congregants by advising them to make well-informed decisions irrespective of the religious leader’s own attitudes. Differences in abortion attitudes stemmed from varying beliefs on when life begins and circumstances in which abortion may be morally acceptable.

However, most participants expressed attitudes in the middle of this spectrum and described more nuanced, complex, and sometimes contradictory views. Religious leaders’ attitudes towards abortion fell on a spectrum from “pro-life” to “pro-choice”.

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