Policy Implications of a National Public Opinion Survey on Abortion in Mexico

Women’s opinions on the legalisation of abortion in Chile 2009–2013

“…This may explain why women most affected by the laws (the poorest) do not demonstrate the highest levels of support. Our findings are somewhat consistent with evidence on SES from Mexico and Brazil, which have demonstrated a positive relationship between SES and support for abortion (Alves Duarte et al 2002;Garcia et al 2004). Further, a recent study found that higher levels of education was also associated with more supportive attitudes on abortion in El Salvador (but not in Mexico) (Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014), another Latin American country where abortion is completely prohibited.…”

“…It is possible that women's views on abortion evolve over the lifecourse, and that after having lived through more experiences or been exposed to more friends or family members with unplanned pregnancies and financial difficulties associated with having more children, they become more willing to support legalisation of abortion in these instances. This hypothesis is also supported by other studies from Latin America (Garcia et al 2004;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Faúndes et al 2013).…”

“…In the existing literature from Latin America, increased levels of education (Cesar et al 1997;Alves Duarte et al 2002;Becker, Garcia, and Larsen 2002;Palermo et al 2010;Valencia Rodríguez et al 2011;Wilson et al 2011;Morán Faúndes 2013;Faúndes et al 2013;Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014), increasing income or socioeconomic status (SES) (Alves Duarte et al 2002;Garcia et al 2004), paid employment (Duarte Osis et al 1994;Palermo et al 2010) and lack of religious affiliation and/or less frequent religious attendance (Gogna et al 2002;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Silva et al 2009;Palermo et al 2010;Wilson et al 2011;Faúndes et al 2013) are associated with increased support for a woman's right to access abortion. Overall, studies from Latin America indicate that increasing age is associated with increased support for abortion (Gogna et al 2002;Garcia et al 2004;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Faúndes et al 2013), though at least one study has found that individuals over the age of 60 are less supportive ) and another found no association (Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014).…”

“…Overall, studies from Latin America indicate that increasing age is associated with increased support for abortion (Gogna et al 2002;Garcia et al 2004;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Faúndes et al 2013), though at least one study has found that individuals over the age of 60 are less supportive ) and another found no association (Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014). Evidence from the region on the relationship between gender and abortion support is mixed (Garcia et al 2004;Palermo et al 2010;Wilson et al 2011;Faúndes et al 2013), as is the relationship with marital status (Duarte Osis et al 1994;Wilson et al 2011;Faúndes et al 2013). Further, while studies from Mexico have shown no relationship with having children (Silva et al 2009;Valencia Rodríguez et al 2011), others from Brazil have shown a positive relationship between support for abortion and number of children the respondent has (Duarte Osis et al 1994;Alves Duarte et al 2002).…”

“…While religion may be a significant predictor of support for legalisation of abortion, a study from Mexico found that a majority of respondents thought that the opinion of the Catholic Church should not be taken into account when legislating abortion (Garcia et al 2004), and in the USA the negative effect of identifying with Catholicism on support for legalisation of abortion has attenuated over time (Hoffmann and Miller 1997;Strickler and Danigelis 2002). Thus, identifying as Catholic may not be correlated with opinions on abortion.…”