Campus Location

Abilene Campus (Residential)

Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Marriage and Family Therapy

Degree Name

Master of Marriage and Family Therapy

Committee Chair or Primary Advisor

Greg Brooks

Second Committee Member or Secondary Advisor

Joanna Méndez-Pounds

Third Committee Member or Committee Reader

Lisa Merchant

Abstract

Recent changes in abortion law created a need to study how these changes may affect the most at risk and sexually active community: launching adults. This study investigated if abortion attitude and political identity predict risky sexual behavior of launching adults, even in the presence of the reliable predictor of sexual attitudes. Forty-one unmarried launching adults (18-25) were recruited through snowballing and convenience sampling. Results revealed that abortion attitude was a significant predictor of risky sexual behavior (F(1,39) = 5.25, p < .05, ß = .462, R2 = .119), but not while in the presence of sexual attitudes. There was not a significant change in predicting power between sexual attitudes and the variables of interest, abortion attitudes and political identity. Political identity was not a significant predictor of risky sexual behavior. The implications of the study are discussed, including how abortion attitudes may potentially impact risky sexual behavior and the importance of clinicians, physicians, families, and lawmakers to consider how abortion law may put launching adults at risk considering the results of the study.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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