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Palabras clave: 'Valores morales'.
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Medical and midwifery student attitudes toward moral acceptability and legality of abortion, following decriminalization of abortion in Chile
Finley Baba, M.Antonia Biggs, Lidia Casas Becerra, Sara Victoria Correa, Alejandra Ramm
Objective
Soon after Chile decriminalized abortion under three limited circumstances in 2017, we assessed medical and midwifery students’ attitudes about abortion morality and legality when compared to national opinions.
Study design
We administered an anonymous, online survey to medical and midwifery students from seven secular and religiously-affiliated universities in Santiago, Chile. We compared student responses to a nationally representative public opinion survey.
Main outcome measures
We examined three main outcomes related to abortion attitudes: (1) moral acceptability of abortion and legal support for abortion in (2) one or (3) all listed circumstances. We used general estimating equations to examine whether university type, field of study, and other student characteristics are associated with each outcome and compared student views toward abortion legality with those of the general public.
Results
Among the 369 student respondents, most agreed that abortion can be a good thing for some women in some situations (82%). When compared to the general public, a larger proportion of students supported decriminalizing abortion in at least one (83% and 97%, respectively) or all (17% and 51%, respectively) seven listed circumstances. While secular university students held significantly more favorable views about abortion morality and legality than students from religiously-affiliated universities, the majority of students from both university types supported abortion in the three cases in which it was recently decriminalized.
Conclusions
Medical and midwifery students from not only secular but also religiously-affiliated universities are very supportive of the recent decriminalization of abortion, which presents training opportunities for both types of universities.
Medical and midwifery students’ views on the use of conscientious objection in abortion care, following legal reform in Chile: a cross-sectional study
M.Antonia Biggs, Lidia Casas Becerra, Finley Baba, Alejandra Ramm, Sara Victoria Correa
Background
In August 2017, Chile lifted its complete ban on abortion by permitting abortion in three limited circumstances: 1) to save a woman’s life, 2) lethal fetal anomaly, and 3) rape. The new law allows regulated use of conscientious objection (CO) in abortion care, including allowing institutions to register as objectors. This study assesses medical and midwifery students’ support for CO, following legal reform.
Methods
From October 2017 to May 2018, we surveyed medical and midwifery students from seven universities located in Santiago, Chile. Universities included 4 secular (2 public and 2 private) and 3 private religiously-affiliated universities; all offering medical degrees with a specialization in obstetrics and gynecology (ob-gyn) and five offering midwifery degrees. We used generalized estimating equations (GEE) to identify characteristics associated with student support for CO, intentions to use CO to refuse to care for someone seeking abortion, and support for CO at the institutional level.
Results
333 of the 413 eligible students who opened the survey, completed the questions on conscientious objection; 26% were seeking medical degrees with an ob-gyn specialty, 25% were seeking midwifery degrees, and 49% were seeking medical degrees and had not yet decided their specialty. While nearly all endorse requirements for conscientious objecting clinicians to inform (92%) and refer (91%) abortion-seeking patients, a minority (18%) would personally use conscientious objection to avoid caring for a patient seeking abortion (12% secular and 39% religious university students). About half of religious-university students (52%) and one-fifth of secular-university (20%) students support objections at the institutional level.
Conclusions
Most students support the regulated use of CO which preserves patients’ access to abortion care. Religious-university student views on the use of conscientious objection in abortion care are discordant with those of their institutions which currently support institutional-level objections.