YOUTH’S ATTITUDES TOWARDS UNINTENDED PREGNANCY

Abstract

The paper deals with an issue of youth’s attitudes towards unintended pregnancy. Studying the psychological basis of a woman's decision about the fate of her unborn child is of great social and ethical significance for the modern society. 86 participants at their early adulthood (М=20,2) were involved into the research. To explore their attitudes we used the Questionnaire of role-based orientations towards childbirth (ROD) (author Rodstein), the Questionnaire "Unintended pregnancy" (author Korchakova) and Standardized interview for studying reproductive attitudes (author Karymova). Our results have shown that young Ukrainian women follow family-oriented attitudes. They tend not to accept being in relationship without official marriage (about 32.9 % demonstrated strong disagreement and only 12 % demonstrated the high level of accepting the idea of civil partnership). However, they do not condemn the premarital sexual relationships (only 8 % participants were intolerant to that kind of relationships). Content analysis of emotional states, associated with the realizing the fact of unwanted pregnancy, revealed the dominance of negative thoughts and emotions among the participants. They declared fear, stress, panic, confusion. However, 35,6% of respondents have positive association with a child birth. All attitudes we divided into 3 subgroups: positive, negative and philosophically neutral.

Taking into account the influence of social and moral values on the process of making decision, we asked participants to estimate 6 social values: «personal freedom», «economic well-being», «children», «professional development», «family» and «love». Our respondents considered the most valuable among them «family», «love» and «children». Those family-oriented attitudes underlay the dominance of option «to give birth» (86%) instead of «to eliminate an unintended pregnancy» (14%) in respondent’s answers. It worth to note, that the option «to give birth and put a child up for adoption» has not been chosen. Young women do not consider that option as a way to cope with the situation.

Another factor that, in our opinion, might influence woman’s choice was the father’s characteristics. Our respondents estimated the appropriateness of having a child with 3 types of men: «loving partner», «casual partner» and «abuser». It was predictable, that the first type was highly rated to have child together. Surprisingly, in a case of casual partner or abuser less than half of respondents preferred not to have a child with such types of fathers (38,4 % and 48,8 % respectively). Moreover, even in a case of assault, about 13,9 % women declared the high level of appropriateness to give birth.

In our opinion, future research could continue to explore the youth’s attitudes towards unintended pregnancy in a male sample or observe cross-cultural differences.