A phone survey has confirmed that Malta maintains a very strong pro-life culture, the NGO Gift of LIfe said today.
It said the survey of 500 respondents conducted by Informa found that 84.5% said they disagreed with the legalisation of abortion.
A small percentage believed that abortion should be legalized in exceptional cases, such as in cases of rape 5.6% and when the mother’s life is in danger 6.2%.
"We believe that when people understand the facts about these two delicate issues, that many would change there minds even about abortion in these cases," GOL said.
It said the research also showed that the Maltese continued to support the right to life amendment it was proposing to the Constitution of Malta extending the right to life to the unborn child from conception. The survey showed that 82.7% of the population supported the initiative.
The main findings of the survey were:
Q1. Do you agree with abortion?
91.5% said they disagree.
5.2% said they agree only in some cases.
2.6% stated they are in favour of abortion.
Q2. When do you think that human life begins?
88.7% of the population think that life begins at conception
3.4% said ‘at implantation’
3.2% think it begins at birth.
Out of the 446 respondents who said ‘at conception’, 46% were males and 54% females
Q3. Do you think that abortion should be legalized in Malta?
84.5%, think that abortion should not be legalized
13.5% think it should
2% aren’t sure.
Respondents who agreed that abortion should be legalized in Q3 above, i.e.13.5% of the total population, were then asked a further question to determine in what cases they felt it should legalized for.
Of the 68 respondents who did think that it should be legalized:
45.6% said this should be legalized when the mother’s life is in danger
41.2% of those who agree that abortion should be legalized think it should be legalized when the child is conceived out of rape; 35.3% when the child is deformed.
Gift of Life said that when these findings were expressed as a percentage of the population of Malta and Gozo the conclusions was that 6.2% said this should be the case when the mother’s life was in danger, 5.6% when the child was conceived out of rape and 4.8% when the child was deformed.
Respondents were then asked:
“To make abortion legal in Malta, it would take 50% of members of Parliament, plus one other seat, however, if the Government and opposition came together and amended the Constitution to give the unborn the clear right to life from conception, it would then require the support of two thirds of MPs to legalise abortion and not a simple majority of 50+1 seats as it stands today.”
Do you agree that this amendment should be done by parliament so that it will be harder but not impossible to legalize abortion in Malta in the future?
82.7% said agree with the amendment. With 54.1% of these being females, and 45.9% males.
9.1% do not agree with the amendment 8.2% aren’t sure.