Internationale Zeitschrift für öffentliche Gesundheit und Sicherheit

Assessment of Opinions of Nursing Students in Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia on Legislation on Admissibility of Abortion

Abstract

Andrzej Brodziak, Alicja Rozyk Myrta, Iveta Matisakova and Jana Kutnohorska

Background: Today in various countries around the world, there is a dispute on the acceptability and legality of abortion. The recent attempt of fundamentalist groups in Poland to further tighten the already very restrictive legislation in Poland, caused in October 2016 contestations between the proponents of so-called pro-choice and pro-life attitudes, which took the form of mass street protests. Working on the attempt to explain the causes of the exacerbation of the dispute, we have also carried out our own focused surveys, which we describe in detail in this short report.

Methods: We conducted the surveys during three focus studies, which were organized by authors of the paper at the Department of Health Care of the University of Trencin (Slovakia); Department of Health Care Studies of Tomas Bata University, Zlin (Czech Republic) and the Institute of Nursing of the University of Applies Sciences, Nysa (Poland). The used questionnaire contained three questions related to opinions on the legislation on the admissibility of abortion.

Results: The gathered data indicate that 36% of young women in Poland think that the present legislation should be maintained and a further 34% of women are of the opinion that it should be liberalized. Only approximately 5% of the young women think that the present legislation should be even more stringent. Moreover, only a very small number of young women in the Czech Republic (5%) think that the present, liberal legislation existing in that country should be tightened.

Conclusions: The legislative initiatives of fundamentalist groups of citizens are not justified in the prevailing opinions of young women in our countries. The mass street protests of women which occurred in Poland showed, however, that fundamentalist arguments no longer play a crucial role if there is a violation of the dignity of women and their biological safety, particularly when non-governmental organizations and feminist associations are involved.