Relationship between legal abortion and marital status
Abortion and its legality have been an issue of concern for a while now. Abortion is generally the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of a fetus or an embryo in the womb. Abortion, in most cases, is negatively viewed in society and its discussion and legalization are always debatable, making it an area which is green for research. This paper will take a critical analysis on the matter using two variables that can be used as the basis of legalizing abortion or rather the impact of this variable in legalizing abortion. This analysis is based on data provided by GSS explorer.
The dependent variable in this research is the act of considering an abortion, and this variable will help us analyze individuals who consider abortion should be an option for any reason. Marital status of the individuals answering to the question is the independent variable in that the research aims to analyses the relation between marital status of an individual and the impact it has on the individual’s decision to consider obtaining a legal abortion. Data obtained from the GSS explorer offers figures in terms of percentage on research done on the subject matter in intervals of one year from 1975 to 2020. The marital status of the research participants is divided into five sections which include never married, married, separated, divorced and widowed. The table below shows the average percentage of individuals who said yes to the obtaining of legal abortion, the average of the data percentages obtained between 1975 and 2020.
Marital status | Average of the percentage population that said “YES” (data analyzed from GSS explorer) |
| Never married | 46% |
| Married | 36.8% |
| Separated | 37.5% |
| Divorced | 46.6% |
| Widowed | 29.6% |
From the table above, divorced individuals and the never-married section record the highest percentage in terms of saying yes to legal abortion. The list follows in the following order; separated 37.5%, married 36.8% and widowed 29.6%.
In conclusion, the data above provides evidence of the existence of a relationship between choice of obtaining a legal abortion, and the marital status of the individual in those individuals who are divorced or never married have the highest chances of obtaining legal abortion compared to the widowed or married individuals.