A Comparative Study of the Attitude of Students Towards Abortion: an Implication for Counselling
CHAPTER ONE
Objective of the study
The main purpose of this study is the attempt of College of Education, Ekiadolor towards abortion and the implication of counseling.
The above statement raised, are developed to act as a guide to the study. Among other things, this study will examine these factor influencing pregnancy due to rape, incest, fetus information and the attitudes colleges have towards abortion or these pregnancies.
Specifically, the following research objectives were introduced:
- To investigate if the attitude of female undergraduates towards abortion differ in Nigeria.
- To examinie the extent to which female students’ attitude towards abortion differ with respect to age (11-20, 21-30, 31-40).
- To examine the attitude of Christian and Muslim female students towards abortion?
- To examine the attitude of married and unmarried female undergraduates towards abortion?
- What is the attitude of urban and rural students towards abortion in Nigeria?
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Conceptual Review
Abortion
Life begins at conception since all the inherited features of an individual are already set at conception (O’Rahilly & Muller, 2010; 2001). Nevertheless, the destruction of life at conception which is known as ‘abortion’ is a popular practice by women all over the world. According to the World Health Organization (1998), abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy before the embryo/fetus attain the age of viability. Okoye(2006), explained that the age of viability of an embryo or fetus in many countries including Nigeria is accepted to be 28weeks of gestation, which is the 7th month of a pregnancy. In consonance, Ramalinga, (2006) viewed abortion as the premature termination of pregnancy. Abortion is also considered as a deliberate and willful act of expelling an embryo or fetus from the uterus by artificial means and so prohibiting the development of an embryo/fetus (Agbakwuru, and Ekechukwu, 2009).Put differently, abortion is the method employed in preventing the birth of unwanted child by destroying the embryo/fetus.
A critical examination of the definitions in the preceding paragraph reveals that abortion is induced. Okoye (2006), affirms that induced abortion is the most common of the three types of abortion which include Induced abortion, spontaneous abortion, and therapeutic abortion. Okoye explained that therapeutic abortion is the abortion performed to save the life of a woman either from complication of pregnancy or other illness. Spontaneous abortion which is also known ‘miscarriage’ is an abortion that occurs naturally on its accord. Induced abortion is an artificial and intentional termination of a pregnancy against the law in Nigeria, using different methods.
However, Adeleke (2007), classified abortion into two major types spontaneous and induced abortion. According to Adeleke, there are two types of induced abortion which are therapeutic and criminal. In his view criminal abortion is an abortion performed illegally against the law. It is what Adeleke called criminal abortion that Okoye (2006) referred to as induced abortion and Reardon (2008), considered as elective abortion which is the interest of this study. Several methods have been employed to induce abortion.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
Survey research method was employed in execution of this investigation. Kpolovie (2016: 250) and Kpolovie (2010: 376) asserted that:
Survey research refers to any developmental field investigation that systematically collects, analyzes and synthesizes quantitative data on a large representative sample of a given population to cross-sectionally or longitudinally identify, describe and explain the relative incidence, distribution and interrelations of political, educational, psychological, sociological, commercial or economic and clinical variables, as well as other characteristics about the sample through data obtained from personal interview, telephone interview, self-administered inquiry and computer-assisted inquiry for accurate generalization to cover the entire population.
Sources of Data
The data for this study were generated from two main sources; Primary sources and secondary sources. The primary sources include questionnaire, interviews and observation. The secondary sources include journals, bulletins, textbooks and the internet.
Population of the Study
Nigeria has a total population of 191,197,655 of which 13,383,836 are students in universities and secondary schools, irrespective of the ownership of the educational institution (World Population Review, 2017). The 13,383,836 students constitute 7% of the population of Nigeria in 2017. While male students are 8,030,302 that is equivalent to 60% of the student population and 4.20% of the total national population; 5,353,534 that is 30% of the student population and 2.80% of the total federal population are female students. Of the 5,353,534 female students that constitute the functional population of this investigation.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Results presentation
Table1: T-Test for Ho:1 – Abortion attitude of female Undergraduates students
The first part of Table 1 has shown the descriptive statistics that answers the first research question of this study. While the mean and standard deviation of the 445 undergraduates’ attitude towards abortion are 83.3753 and 14.86124, respectively; the 855 female secondary school students’ attitude towards abortion has a mean of 51.2713 and a standard deviation of 26.47342. It can be discerned very vividly from the second part of Table 1that the computed t-value for equal variances not assumed is 27.985 which is statistically significant at 0.001 alpha for a two-tailed test.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Conclusion
Categorically, all the five independent variables of this investigation have been found in the study to significantly influence female students’ attitude to abortion. This accounts for why each of the null hypotheses was rejected. While undergraduates have significantly better attitude towards abortion than their counterparts in secondary schools; female students who are Christians significantly favour abortion than Muslim female students. Unmarried female students’ attitude to abortion is statistically better than those of the married students. Similarly, rural female students have significantly better attitude towards abortion than urban female students. With regard to age, female students aged 31-40 are statistically better in their attitude towards abortion than those who are aged 21-30, and these, in turn, demonstrate profoundly better attitude to abortion than the female students within the age brackets of 11 and 20 years. Perhaps, the most dramatic and provocative finding of this investigation is that virtually all the female students 1186 (91.2%) very strongly affirm that abortion should be legalized in Nigeria.
The virtually unanimous assertion of the female undergraduate students that abortion should be legalized in Nigeria is very much in line with the egoism, hedonism, liberal, prochoice and pro-abortion theories of abortion. The Egoism theory posits that one ought to act so as to secure the greatest possible good for oneself. The Hedonism theory avers that actions are right and good only if they produce pleasure and happiness and are wrong or bad if they produce pain and unhappiness. It explains the driving force that would make a woman abort a pregnancy by considering her interest first before that of the fetus. The Liberal theory speculates that abortion should be permitted basically on demand, especially in cases where the woman is at risk, including cases of incest or rape. This implies that liberalists are pro-abortion and advocate the legalization of abortion.
The Pro-choice theory of abortion is liberal and is like the pro-abortion theory which maintains that a woman should have the right to do whatsoever she wants with her body and a fetus in her uterus. Therefore, a woman has the right and freedom to terminate whether her pregnancy should be allowed to develop to child delivery or not. Thus, abortion is a matter of the woman’s choice and decision. The 2009 Abortion Surveillance in United States by Pazol, Creanga, Zane, Burley and Jamieson (2012) on whether abortion saves life showed that the pro-choice advocates argue that without easy access to abortion, substantial number of women would die through complications and health problems from pregnancy. In fact, like the pro-choice advocates, 91.2% of respondents of this study consider it absurd to talk about the sanctity of the life of an unborn child which is not considered a full fledge autonomous human individual. The safety, well-being and welfare of the woman are paramount and should be sort for rather than that of the unborn child. The female students under investigation strongly uphold that every woman should have the same and equal access to abortion, in case they need to or desire to terminate a pregnancy. Therefore no abortion law should violate a woman’s constitutional right to privacy, and jeopardize her right and choice to manage her reproductive health.
The fervent assertion of female students that abortion be legalized is in line with the best practices in most developed world with a view to prevention or at least reduction of the high rate of female mortality due to abortion complications as a result of sharp practices, done mainly by quacks (OECD, 2017a; IMF, 2013; World Values Survey, 2015; ILO, 2014; OECD, 2017). If only abortion is legalized, those who have to do it can have access to get it done in public hospitals and renowned private medical centres as against the current practice that a person necessarily seeking abortion has to go to quacks who perform it unprofessionally in secrets that often culminate in complications and death (Gamatra, 2006).
Recommendations
Based on the findings, it is strongly recommended that the laws that forbade abortion in the country should be reviewed to legitimize abortion like what is obtainable in the developed world. In fact, even the natural tendency to try the forbidden may make some female students seek abortion.
Abstinence from sex is indeed the best way of preventing abortion. For married couples and singles who may not be able to practice strict abstinence, use of condom and the various existing family planning measures is highly recommended.
The significance of this study is obviously inevitable and cannot be over emphasized. The findings of this study will be of useful value in helping the government, especially the federal and state Ministries of Health to embark on more anti-abortion campaigns in different parts of the country. It will as well spur the federal and state Ministries of Health to improve, promote, and intensify the provision of family planning and contraceptive services in the federation to ensure greater and correct use of contraceptive methods which will to a great extent, prevent women from unwanted pregnancies that often make them opt for abortion. If the attitude of female undergraduate students is found positive, it will also assist the public and government to realize the threat abortion poses on the lives of the present generation as well as the existence of the future generation. This awareness will spur the government to give a more serious attention to abortion and combat it more efficiently and effectively. The findings may also be of use to the upper and lower legislative arms of government in reexamining whether or not abortion should be legalized in the country.
The result of this study will also be of great importance to the female undergraduate students as well as their parents and guardians. It will help them to be more serious with the sexuality education of the girl child by exposing them early and regular sound sexuality education right from childhood to prevent the girl child from falling victims to abortion in the future. Furthermore, the findings of this study will assist religious groups to intensify their involvement in the fight against abortion in our society, by organizing more anti-abortion programs and family life activities. Also, it will assist social health workers in non-governmental organizations that are interested in women’s welfare/wellbeing to improve on their provision of welfare services, especially in the aspect of accommodating teenage girls who get pregnant, drop out of school and are rejected by their parents.
Counselors will equally benefit so much from the result of this study as it will assist and encourage more counsellors to go into family life/ reproductive health counselling and adolescence sexuality education as a way of combating abortion.
The ministry of education will also benefit enormously from the results of this study. It will assist the ministry to review and reform school policies so that school-aged girls can return to school to complete their education in the various institutions of learning after delivery of a baby. The leadership of university and secondary education institutions, lecturers and teachers are not left out of the list of beneficiaries of the findings of this study, as the information revealed could help them improve sexuality and moral education in our tertiary and secondary institutions of learning.
References
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- Advocates for Youth 2005. “The Facts: Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in Sub-Saharan Africa”. http://www.advocateforyouth.org/publications/factsheet/fssxrepr.html.
- The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) and The Campaign Against Unwanted Pregnancy (CAUP), 2002–2003 community-based survey
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- http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/archive/Sharing-Responsibility.pdf Sharing Responsibility:Women, Society and Abortion Worldwide] (Report). 1999. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/archive/Sharing-Responsibility.pdf
- Guttmacher Policy Review (2007), Volume 10, Number 4
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