Many do not believe divorce leads to abortion
The legalisation of divorce would not make it easier for abortion to be legalised, according to 47 per cent of people who answered a survey commissioned by Gift of Life, an organisation that campaigns against abortion.
Another 36 per cent held the opposite view, feeling the introduction of divorce would pave the way for abortion and 17 per cent did not know.
Gift of Life stressed it had not taken an official stand on divorce but it asked this question to better understand the public’s opinion about a possible association.
The survey involved a nationally representative sample of 500 and was carried out by Informa Consultants.
It found that 87 per cent of the local population were against legalising abortion, down by just one per cent from last year. The figure for 2008 was 84.5 per cent. The other 13 per cent of survey respondents agreed with its legalisation although nine per cent of these agreed it should be legalised only in some cases.
Of those who agree that abortion should be legalised or that it should be legalised only in some cases, about half cited rape as a reason.
Women remain the most likely to disagree with the legalisation of abortion, with 93 per cent of women falling in this bracket, compared to 77 per cent of men.
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23 Comments
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Raymond Bezzina
Oct 21st 2010, 13:00
@ All
Although divorce and abortion are not the same act, however, the direct
link between them is that both are evil practices.
It is important that we all understand and admit that our human nature is
very weak due to sin, so it is prone to fall into evil habits.
When a person accepts evil, such as divorce, s/he becomes extremely vulnerable
to accept other evils, such as abortion. Therefore we have to be very vigilant on
ourselves and not let our own minds deceive us.
History clearly proves that evil begets more evil, therefore politiciens should not
legalise divorce, abortion and other such practices.
D. A . Agius
Oct 21st 2010, 02:25
@Joe Zammit
There is only a handful of countries (less than 10) which completely make abortion illegal. malta happens to be one of them.
For divorce, only Malta, the Philippenes and the Vatican do not have divorce legislation.
Your comment simply does not make sense as it's not a reasonable argument that because of divorce they have abortion.
Also there are different laws regarding abortion, which again, similar to the divorce debate but on the other hand does not tie them together, implies that one should not take a single yardstick but rather study in depth the laws in place.
In fact, based on your argument, Malta, the Philippenes and the Vatican are inhabited by extra terrestials as they are the only countries without some form of divorce legislation.
Rather than extra terrestials however, I'd assume that the real issue in Malta is that of FANATICS imposing their will as they pull the strings to the Puppets in power.
Alan Vella
Oct 20th 2010, 22:57
Who can mention one country where there is divorce and there are no toasters?
All facts without exception prove that divorce leads to the toasters.
It's a LIE to say that divorce does not lead to toasters.
Ruby Jenner
Oct 20th 2010, 20:37
I don't see any connection between divorce and abortion. I do think that both should be available to those that need them. People have to be responsable for their own actions.
Joseph Galea
Oct 20th 2010, 16:57
What a silly, pointless survey? One might as well have asked whether introduction of divorce would grow warts on your chest. Abortion is a very, very serious issue. Lets not trivialise it.
Joe Zammit
Oct 20th 2010, 16:57
Who can mention one country where there is divorce and there is no abortion?
All facts without exception prove that divorce leads to abortion.
It's a LIE to say that divorce does not lead to abortion.
Charles Callus
Oct 20th 2010, 17:09
Can you mention one country where illegal abortions are not carried out?
It is a separate issue and should be treated as such.
When the debate for abortion crops then it should be tackled in a mature way....preferably by people with brains larger than a grape.
patrick zammit
Oct 20th 2010, 17:15
Who can mention one country where there is divorce and there is no charitable acts?
All facts without exception prove that divorce leads to charitable acts.
It's a LIE to say that divorce does not lead to charitable acts.
d. borg
Oct 20th 2010, 17:18
What loads of rubbish. You say anything to promote your anti-divorce stunt. What has abortion got to do with divorce? They are two different topics altogether and whoever equates the two definitely has ulterior motives.
Mario Cassar
Oct 21st 2010, 02:55
I've lived in both Ireland and Brazil. In Ireland they have divorce, but abortion is illegal. In Brazil you can divorce by going to a government office and paying €100, you don't even need a lawyer if don't have children. In Brazil abortion is illegal too. I'm sure there are many other countries where divorce is legal and abortion illegal.
Ramon Casha
Oct 21st 2010, 05:34
Sure. There are only 2 countries where divorce is illegal, whereas a large percentage of countries still do not allow abortion except where the mother's life is at risk.
http://www.pregnantpause.org/lex/world02.jsp
http://reproductiverights.org/en/document/the-worlds-abortion-laws-map-2007
Adrian Farrugia
Oct 20th 2010, 13:27
To All (especially Dr Francis Saliba) if you stick to the Common Sense (Sens Komuni) of which all lawyers must stick to this, must some how reflect that there are people less fortunate than others (as I am one of them) and yet somehow with all the difficulties we face, managed to make a home and even some of us build up a family. So do not hide this problem under the carpet and use excuses for what a religion says.
For all the Law Makers of which we nominate in every election, consider us, and give us our rights.
I will stress again do not do this as a Political Issue and somehow try to gain votes from the general public from it.
I AM TOTALLY AGAINST ABORTION - do not mix Divorce with Abortion as this will lead to wrong information and people will conclude wrongly.
patrick zammit
Oct 20th 2010, 12:59
The church will not go down in its fight against the introduction of divorce without using all sorts of trickery and threats.
For the Church,it is all about keeping its power on the lives of people and not loosing resulting income derived from dishing out annulments.
Why didn't the same high priests also issue threats of more fire and brimestone to those that do not legislate against contraceptive importation (and use) and to all those who in some way or another, are involved in making contraceptives available to the consumers? According to the encyclical Humanae Vitae, all sexual acts have to be left open for procreation.
And the same Church tells us that we cannot "pick and mix". But apperantly, they can!
P. Vincenti
Oct 20th 2010, 12:48
The full research results of the survey carried out on behalf of GOL by Informa Consultants may be viewed and downloaded at http://www.lifemalta.org/home/
Paul Barrett
Oct 20th 2010, 12:16
The two arguments should never be linked, they are totally different.
Abortion is about killing a potential human being.
Divorce is about giving - issuing a bit of paper to acknowledge that a legally separated person's marriage is irretrievably finished and as such, has a choice to enter into another relationship and apply for a civil marriage should they wish to do so.
Basically a divorce is an annulment but with the difference that it acknowledges that there actually was a marriage rather then denying that a marriage ever existed.
Gerry Cowie
Oct 20th 2010, 18:36
Correction, Paul:- Abortion is the killing of a human being with potential.
Ramon Casha
Oct 20th 2010, 11:11
The title should read
"Despite loaded questions and flawed survey methodology, GoL failed to convince a majority that divorce leads to abortion".
This survey methodology is deeply flawed and its results worthless.
As could be seen from the surveys conducted by The Times, MaltaToday and Xarabank, people's answers to such surveys vary significantly depending on the question asked. In their surveys on divorce, when people were simply asked "Do you agree with divorce", a small majority said "no", but when it was qualified by asking "Do you agree with divorce with the safeguards as proposed by JPO", a majority said yes.
In this survey on the other hand, when a person stated they were against abortion, those conducting the survey were instructed to skip all the questions which asked about abortion in specific circumstances, such as rape or incest. On the other hand, those who were in favour of abortion were led to a series of overtly loaded questions which started with dubious statements to the effect that rape victims benefit from having their baby, then asked the same question again, trying to elicit a different response.
This can't even be called a survey.
Gerry Cowie
Oct 20th 2010, 18:39
What is your firm evidence of your claims against GOL, Ramon? You must provide clear and unequivocal evidence if you are going to make claims like this! Funny how you are quite happy to quote surveys which suit your side of the argument on so many things and then have the audacity to accuse others of doing the same with no firm evidence!
Andrew Farrugia
Oct 20th 2010, 22:45
@ Mr Gerry Cowie
Ever heard of equivocating humanists?
Ramon Casha
Oct 21st 2010, 05:24
Didn't you read the survey report? It's on their website, and it includes the questionnaire that was used. The questionnaire instructs the person conducting the interview that, if that person answers "no" to the question of whether they agree with abortion, they should skip straight to question 7, skipping all the "What if..." questions. Those "what if" questions start with a "fact" that raped women benefit from having their baby. That "fact" is taken from a book by a prominent pro-life activist (the reference is given in the questionnaire itself).
I invite you to read the questionnaire yourself. Even if you are against abortion, you should be able to see that the survey's questions are loaded, and you'll see the instructions to skip certain questions.
Marius Zulgis
Oct 20th 2010, 10:31
What links the two, abortion and divorce, together? I cannot for the life of me find any vestige of a link. Indeed such thinking brings to my mind a quotation from early British comedy (Monty Python):
"For example, given the premise, "all fish live underwater" and "all mackerel are fish", my wife will conclude, not that "all mackerel live underwater", but that "if she buys kippers it will not rain", or that "trout live in trees", or even that "I do not love her any more." This she calls "using her intuition". I call it "crap", and it gets me very *irritated* because it is not logical."
Ramon Casha
Oct 21st 2010, 09:10
The link is that both words contain the letters i, c and r.
N Camilleri
Oct 20th 2010, 10:22
The two topics are widely different and in my humble opinion are not so much related.
I am in favour of divorce being legalised however I am 'almost' totally against abortion. Only in cases where parents have a disease like HIV or in case of rape it should be allowed. Imagine case 1 the child will probably suffer and has a bigger chance to fall ill and die at an early stage, whilst in case 2 the child will be seen for all his life as the result of a rape. Tough for the mother and for the child itself.
On the other hand divorce can be the solution after a hard life trying to deal with a difficult situation in the family probably enclosed between four walls where both the parents and the children are facing difficulties living their life peacefully. Still, it needs to be monitored and not allowed to everyone.