期刊名称：Contention: The Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Protest
电子版ISSN：2330-1392
出版年度：2014
卷号：2
期号：1
页码：5-24
出版社：Punctum Books
摘要：February 11th 2007 set the date for what would be an intense and passionate discussion ona gendered health related issue in Portugal: abortion. In the referendum, approximately 44%of the eligible population voted, and from these 59% voted for the legalization of abortion inPortugal. Hence, this referendum brought about changes in the Portuguese law, which nowallows legal abortion to occur at the desire of the woman until the 10th week of pregnancy.The present research consists of a study in which 205 university students fully responded to4 data collection sessions between November 2006 and March 2007. The goal of the studywas to understand the most relevant psychosocial variables when trying to explain the votingintentions and voting behaviour of Portuguese youth. The variables in the present study includedparticipants’ gender, political orientation, religious affi liation and practice, sexual attitudes andattitudes towards abortion. Our results show that all of the above variables, except for gender,are relevant for the opinion formation about this topic. Approximately 94% of our participantsreported they had the intention to vote, although only 64% of these actually voted on the day ofthe referendum. Finally, we found that participants rely mostly on the strength of their attitudestowards abortion in relation to their voting intention, while relying mostly on the strength oftheir normative religious beliefs in relation to their voting behaviour. Implications of our resultsfor understanding the politics of abortion legislation are discussed.
关键词：Abortion; voting intentions; voting behaviour; political orientation; religious affi liation and practice; sexual;attitudes; attitudes towards abortion
