Young Unwed Women Who Graduated From Private Religious Schools More Likely To Obtain Abortions

[moobu2]

Unwed pregnant teens and twenty-somethings who attend or have graduated from private religious schools are more likely to obtain abortions than their peers from public schools, according to new sociological research.


"This research suggests that young, unmarried women are confronted with a number of social, financial and health-related factors that can make it difficult for them to act according to religious values when deciding whether to keep or abort a pregnancy," said the study's author, sociologist Amy Adamczyk, an assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

While previous research has investigated the link between religion and abortion attitudes, fewer studies have explored religion's impact on abortion behavior. To fill this research gap, Adamczyk examined how personal religious involvement, schoolmate religious involvement and school type influenced the pregnancy decisions of a sample of 1,504 unmarried and never-divorced women age 26 and younger from 125 different schools. The women ranged in age from 14 to 26 at the time they discovered they were pregnant. Twenty-five percent of women in the sample reported having an abortion, a likely underestimate, according to Adamczyk.

sciencedaily.com

[TNDemo]

1. I went to a private Christian college

(I was too scared of the big bad world at the time and those wild universities - my kids have all attended big universities if that is any indication of how much I've changed). I knew a number of girls there who got abortions. They would always promote pro-life until it came to them. They were the exception. Also we had a huge gay population. They were not open about it but I later asked a friend why they all came there and he said it was so easy to be sequestered with the guys since they kept the men and women separated so much.

[HockeyMom]

2. Yes and No

I went to an all girls Catholic school for 12 years. I saw my classmates "disappear" from school for months and even entire semesters. We all KNEW what was going on despite the school saying they were on "vacation". Yeah, right.

However, it can also have the total opposite effect. Many, many of us started questioned THEM and their totally unrealiastic views. It happened to me when I was 15. I got into arguments with both nuns and priests not just on the abortion issue, but contraceptives and birth control. I was an only child by choice. How could I not feel any different when even my own parents weren't living what they were teaching?

So, again, I say yes, and no.

[get the red out]

3. They have the means to get an abortion

In many parts of the country getting an abortion requires the means to travel and pay for the procedure. Girls who go to private schools generally come from families who are a little farther up the socio-economic scale than girls who are lucky to go to the local community college, if obtain any higher education at all.

Also, just on a personal note, though I went to public school all the way I would have rather been dead than ever have my mother know I was having sex in college, considering her religious views and the verbal abuse that would have followed. I am not exaggerating.

[knitter4democracy]

6. Not necessarily.

At our evangelical Christian college, we had many kids who were the first people in their families to go to college who were surviving on loans and grants. Our college was the cheapest private college in the state and kept it that way.

That said, we had decent abortion rate, not that the college ever made that public. When I was there, they kicked kids out who got pregnant or got someone pregnant, so there was a definite incentive to quietly go get an abortion without anyone knowing.

[struggle4progress]

4. "...Results revealed no significant link between a young woman's reported decision to have an

abortion and her personal religiosity ..."

So the explanation must be sought elsewhere, perhaps in perceived attitudes towards pregnancy out-of-wedlock

[Captain Hilts]

5. Private school = $$. Wealthy folks more likely to have abortions. nt