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  • Title: Abortion in Canada: religious and ideological dimensions of women's attitudes.
    Author: Krishnan V.
    Journal: Soc Biol; 1991; 38(3-4):249-57. PubMed ID: 1801205.
    Abstract:
    This paper examines a number of demographic and sociocultural factors (e.g., age, marital status, family size, religion, religious assiduity, sex-role ideology) as predictors of women's attitudes toward abortion, using data from the Canadian Fertility Survey of 1984. The findings suggest that women's abortion attitudes are to a greater extent based on ideological positions. It appears that anti-abortion stance affects those women who are religious, presumably by increasing the relationship between their general sex-role ideological stances and abortion attitudes. Abortion attitudes also vary according to a woman's education, her size, and province/region of residence. Attitudes of Canadian women of reproductive age toward abortion were analyzed using data from the Canadian Fertility Survey of 1984. 5315 women ages 18-49 were surveyed by telephone using World Fertility Survey questions and additional questions on attitudes toward marriage, family and abortion. Attitude variables were classified into "hard," or physical, and "soft," or social reasons for having an abortion. The analysis was in 3 stages: assessment of explanatory power of socio-demographic and attitudinal variables; adding religious affiliation and religiosity; adding issues of sex role ideology. There was no relationship between most demographic variables and attitude, except for higher approval by divorced, separated and widowed women, and decreasing approval with increasing number of children. Approval was lowest among Catholics. Approval increased sharply with educational level. Multivariate analysis found religiosity to have the strongest effect on abortion attitudes. Strong effects were found for sex role ideology, especially for social reasons. Married women were more likely to approve of abortion for physical reasons. The study suggested that approval of abortion is centered in a certain liberal-minded stratum of society.
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