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• Students' attitudes towards abortion are not comparable
  Souhail Alouini
  Published on: 19 June 2009

• Published on: 19 June 2009

  Students' attitudes towards abortion are not comparable

  • Souhail Alouini, Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, M.D., Ph.D .
  • Other Contributors:
    • Goda Venslauskaite, Christian Hervé

  Rosie Steele (1) reports that medical students without religious affiliation of Oslo and Belfast universities are mainly pro-choice. However, it is surprising that 48% of Norwegian students do not have religious affiliation, whereas only 4.7% of Irish students do not have it. Why was the rate of religious affiliation approximately ten times superior in Irish students' group than in the Norwegian one? An explanation needs to b...

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  Rosie Steele (1) reports that medical students without religious affiliation of Oslo and Belfast universities are mainly pro-choice. However, it is surprising that 48% of Norwegian students do not have religious affiliation, whereas only 4.7% of Irish students do not have it. Why was the rate of religious affiliation approximately ten times superior in Irish students' group than in the Norwegian one? An explanation needs to be provided. Probably, the question concerning religious affiliation was not formulated in the same manner for the 2 groups of students -- this could explain the difference between the two percentages. There could have been a confusion between religious affiliation (which is the religion transmitted by parents to children) and religious practice. Moreover, it is worth noticing that there are other significant differences in the two groups. First, the two groups of students are not comparable in size, making the conclusions of this study limited. Indeed, the number of Norwegian students is much lower than the number of Irish students (59 vs. 86): 31% less. Secod, very few Irish medical students have seen the practice of abortion, which is not true of Norwegian students (9.4% vs. 74.6%). As the majority of Irish students has never seen an abortion,their attitude is bound to be not very informative for a health professional. Finally, the legal context of abortion of the students' countries is completely different; indeed abortion is illegal in Ireland but not in Norway.

  References

  1. Steele R. Medical students' attitudes to abortion: a comparison between Queen's University Belfast and the University of Oslo. J Med Ethics. 2009 ;35:390

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  Conflict of Interest:
  None declared.

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