A comparatively high response rate was achieved in the latest survey organised by the University Students’ Council (KSU) dealing with the controversial subject of abortion, Social Policy Commissioner, Petra Grech told The Malta Independent.

This high response rate was being compared to other similar surveys carried out by KSU.

Although only 733 participants replied from a population of around 11,000 students, around 7 per cent, this is still considered to be representative Social Policy Coordinator, Christian Aquilina explained.

The survey was reviewed by Professor Liberato Camilleri, a specialist in statistics, who according to Aquilina, said that replies over 500 are considered representative from a statistical perspective. Grech, in fact, said they got more replies than was necessary as a minimum.

The results showed that 58.4 per cent of university students who participated in the survey believe that abortion should not be legalised whilst 41.6 per cent is in favour. 

“We realised as more responses came in that the trends continued to show an increase for those against abortion and a decrease for those in favour of abortion,” Grech said.

When KSU spoke with Camilleri he told them that even if all the students had replied to this survey, the results would still be similar. The margin of error was in fact only 3.5 per cent, Aquilina pointed out.

The results showed that most respondents were female with a ratio of 6 is to 4. When questioned about this, Grech replied that these replies were comparable to the university students’ gender composition.

One of the questions in the survey was if the respondent agreed with abortion when a mother’s life is endangered. In this case, only 13 per cent strongly disagreed that abortion should be illegal, whilst 40.5 per cent strongly agreed abortion should be legal.

The KSU agreed, before the survey was issued, that the results of the survey would reflect their position on behalf of all student representatives and students, which is therefore against the legalisation of abortion.

When asked by this newsroom their stance about specific circumstances, like when the mother’s life is endangered, especially considering the survey results, they reiterated that their stance is against abortion and was taken on the overarching general question, if abortion should be legalised.

“KSU’s job is to see what the students think and to represent them. We always have to keep in mind what the majority of the students think,” Aquilina said.

When asked if, despite their stand against abortion, they agreed to debate the subject, Grech said that two public consultations were held which resulted in a debate. The second consultation included a balanced panel with two representatives from the pro-life side and two representatives from the pro-choice side.

“We did everything we could to raise a debate on the subject,” Grech noted.

The survey results found that there is a significantly larger percentage of students aged between 21 and 25 years who are in favour of legalising abortion (48.5 per cent), compared to their younger counterparts (37.6 per cent) and older counterparts (35.6 per cent).

On this Aquilina remarked that whilst they cannot say what will happen in the future, each generation is changing in terms of its mentality, culture and upbringing. All of these influences what people think.

The survey results also noted that 47.2 per cent of females, compared to 31.8 per cent of males, were in favour of legalising abortion.