From the end of the Second World War until the beginning of the nineties planed parenthood in the Czech Republic was reduced to termination of pregnancy, that is, to contraception ex post. In the time of highest abortion rate – the second half of the eighties - almost one half of pregnancies ended by induced (unnaturally awakened) abortion. In this almost fifty-year long period there was an inverted relation between fertility and abortion: if the number of abortions increased, the rate of fertility decreased and vice versa (increase and decrease of induced abortion was caused predominantly by changes in the abortion legislation).
From the beginning of the nineties the values of both fertility and abortion indicators started to decrease sharply. Awareness of modern contraception and its increasing usage are stated as the main causes of the change in reproductive behaviour. This raises the following question: Have younger generations changed their view on induced abortion as well? Many researches ask a more general question, in which the circumstances of induced abortion should be legal, acceptable, etc. (see for example Leontiyeva). This gives us evidence of certain tolerance of the society, but it doesn’t prove the individual’s willingness to undergo such an operation. We have therefore decided to pose a more specific question: How would the respondents themselves solve the potential unplanned pregnancy? The aim was to find out how many people would solve this situation by abortion and what groups of people would prefer such a solution. High abortion rate was not the only characteristic of the Czech society. Another particularity was that abortion was preferred by older married women, usually with two children. Because some changes occurred in this respect as well, we will concentrate in the first part on specific data and on the shift of certain indicators in the nineties. In the second part we will analyse the survey results.
- Download the full press release here: 100035se_salamou_saman-potratovost EN.pdf
