Over at Secular Right I report again that there is no sex difference in attitudes toward abortion in the general population (if anything, women are a bit more pro-life than men). But, to my surprise in the American Congress women do support abortion rights to a greater extent than men. This holds for both Republicans and Democrats.
Quick thoughts:
1) I used one abortion-rights organization’s rating for 2007-2008. Would be useful to use pro-life and other abortion-rights organizations, as well as different years, to see if the difference is consistent. The sample size for women isn’t very large in Congress.
2) Try to control for other variables.
Those who know more about the selection process for candidates for higher office might have some immediate insight as well.
Addendum: Poking through the GSS I did once find that among college-educated white liberals women placed a greater weight on their support for abortion-rights than men. I suspect that explains the tacit assumption among many liberals that women in particular care about abortion and support its legality to a greater extent than men, in their social set that is quite true. But, that segment of the population (college-educated white liberals) are only ~5% of the total American population.
