Abstract:
Objectives: Because medical, midwifery and law students in Ghana constitute the next generation
of health care and legal practitioners, this study aimed to evaluate their attitudes towards abortion
and their perceptions of the decision-making capacity of pregnant adolescents.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 340 medical, midwifery and law students.
A pretested and validated questionnaire was used to collect relevant data on respondents’ sociodemographic
characteristics, attitudes towards abortion and the perceived capacity and rationality
of pregnant adolescents’ decisions. The v2 test of independency and Fischer’s exact test were used
where appropriate.
Results: We retained 331 completed questionnaires for analysis. Respondents’ mean age was
21.0 ± 2.9 years and the majority (95.5%) were of the Christian faith. Women made up 77.9%
(n¼258) of the sample. Most students (70.1%) were strongly in favour of abortion if it was for
health reasons. More than three-quarters (78.0%) of the students strongly disagreed on the use of
abortion for the purposes of sex selection. Most respondents (89.0%) were not in favour of legislation
to make abortion available on request for pregnant adolescents, with medical students
expressing a more negative attitude compared with law and midwifery students (p<0.001). Over
half of the midwifery students (52.6%) believed that adolescents should have full decision-making
capacity regarding their pregnancy outcome, compared with law and medical students (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Tensions between adolescent reproductive autonomy, the accepted culture of third
party involvement (parents and partners), and the current abortion law may require keen reflection
if an improvement in access to safe abortion services is envisioned.
