The Supreme Court and Morality Policy Adoption in the American States

Morality policy studies are generally constructed around the theoretical perspective of democratic responsiveness, whereby factors such as religious affiliation of citizens, public opinion, and partisanship affect adoption. The author expands morality policy theory to include the U.S. Supreme Court. She creates a measure of the “constitutional context” state legislators are faced with when debating morality policy proposals and develops a series of hypotheses regarding its effect on morality policy adoption. She tests these hypotheses by employing an event history model of state abortion policy adoptions from 1973 to 2000. The results indicate that the constitutional context has a significant effect on abortion policy adoption; however, its effect is conditioned by the state political environment.