TABLES: Knowledge and Opinions About Abortion Law Among Mexican Youth

	International Family Planning Perspectives Volume 28, Number 4, December 2002
	Knowledge and Opinions About Abortion Law Among Mexican Youth TABLES

TABLE 1. Percentage distribution of respondents to survey on knowledge and opinions about emergency contraception and abortion, by selected characteristics, Mexico, 2000
Characteristic	% (N=907)	Characteristic	% (N=907)
Sex		Attendance at religious services
Male	47	>=once a week	41
Female	53	<once a week	59
Age		Religious identification
15-17	33	Catholic	73
18-24	67	Other	8
Marital status		Not religious	19
Never-married	77	Registered to vote
Consensual union	5	Yes	54
Married	17	No	14
Divorced/separated	1	Not eligible	33
Parity		Political party identification
0	78	PAN†	28
1	14	Other	21
>=2	7	None	16
Missing	1	Not eligible to vote	33
Education		Missing	3
<complete elementary	13	Knows someone who has had an abortion
Some/complete middle school	27	Yes	20
Some/complete technical high school	No	5	79
Some/complete preparatory high school	32	Knows someone who has used emergency contraceptive pills
>high school	23	Yes	8
Is employed		No	92
Yes	87	Missing	1
No	13	Prior knowledge about emergency contraceptive pills
Region		Yes	37
Pacific North	8	No	63
North Central Gulf	14	Knows the legal status of abortion
Bajio	16	Yes	46
Central	19	No	54
Mexico City	20	Attitude toward emergency contraceptive pills
Southeast	22	Liberal	91
Residence		Conservative	9
Urban	76	Total	100
Rural	24
Total	100
†PAN is the National Action Party.

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TABLE 2. Odds ratios (and 95% confidence intervals) from univariate and multivariate analyses of the association between selected characteristics and the likelihood of having information that abortion is legal in one's state
Characteristic	Univariate		Multivariate
Characteristic	Odds ratio	p-value	Odds ratio	p-value
Education		<0.0001		0.0003
<complete elementary	0.33 (0.21-0.53)		0.48 (0.29-0.81)
Some/complete middle school	0.34 (0.23-0.50)		0.41 (0.27-0.61)
Some/complete technical high school	0.40 (0.20-0.80)		0.50 (0.24-1.03)
Some/complete preparatory high school	0.64 (0.45-0.92)		0.65 (0.45-0.95)
>high school (ref)	1.00		1.00
Region		<0.0001		<0.0001
Pacific North	0.61 (0.35-1.05)		0.69 (0.39-1.22)
North Central Gulf	0.30 (0.19-0.47)		0.31 (0.19-0.51)
Bajio	0.31 (0.20-0.49)		0.37 (0.23-0.60)
Central	0.23 (0.15-0.36)		0.26 (0.16-0.41)
Mexico City (ref)	1.00		1.00
Southeast	0.61 (0.40-0.92)		0.75 (0.48-1.16)
Residence		<0.0001		0.0029
Urban (ref)	1.00		1.00
Rural	0.46 (0.33-0.63)		0.57 (0.39-0.83)
Attitude toward emergency contraceptive pills		0.0030		0.0062
Liberal	2.08 (1.26-3.43)		2.16 (1.28-3.67)
Conservative (ref)	1.00		1.00
Age
15-17	0.83 (0.63-1.10)	0.1899	na
18-24 (ref)	1.00		na
Prior knowledge about emergency contraceptive pills		0.0046
Yes		1.48 (1.13-1.94)	na
No (ref)	1.00		na
Attendance at religious services		0.0086
>=once a week	0.70 (0.54-0.91)		na
<once a week (ref)	1.00		na
Knows someone who has had an abortion		0.0463
Yes	1.39 (1.01-1.92)		na
No (ref)	1.00		na
Sex		0.1411
Male (ref)	1.00		na
Female	1.22 (0.94-1.58)		na
Knows someone who has used emergency contraceptive pills		0.1626
Yes	1.41 (0.87-2.29)		na
No (ref)	1.00		na
Notes: All p-values are from the likelihood ratio test. ref=reference group. na=not applicable, because variable was not included in the model.

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TABLE 3. Percentage of states allowing abortion in various circumstances, and percentage of respondents supporting legal abortion in each circumstance, by region
Circumstance	States allowing abortion (N=25)†	Respondents supporting legal abortion
		All regions	Pacific North	North Central Gulf	Bajio	Central	Mexico City	Southeast
		(N=907)	(N=75)	(N=131)	(N=148)	(N=168)	(N=182)	(N=203)
Pregnancy is the result of a rape***	100	70	76	58	65	79	80	64
Woman's life is at risk*	84	83	95	75	82	86	84	81
Woman's health is in danger	36	77	85	73	73	77	76	78
Fetus has birth defects***	36	50	63	43	42	48	61	46
Economic reasons***	4	19	11	21	11	21	30	14
Woman is single**	0	13	10	9	8	10	21	13
Woman is a minor*	0	22	15	21	14	22	27	26
Pregnancy resulted from contraceptive failure*	0	11	10	13	5	10	17	10
On request**	0	20	14	18	13	24	28	20
p<.05. p<.01. **p<.001. †Excludes the six states not represented in the sample; includes the Federal District. Note: p-values are from chi-square test on the variable region as a whole.

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TABLE 4. Odds ratios (and 95% confidence intervals) from univariate and multivariate analyses of the association between selected characteristics and the likelihood of having conservative, rather than moderate, opinions about abortion
Characteristic	Univariate		Multivariate
Characteristic	Odds ratio	p-value	Odds ratio	p-value
Knows the legal status of abortion		0.0006		0.1100
Yes	0.60 (0.44-0.80)		0.73 (0.52-1.01)
No (ref)	1.00		1.00
Education		<0.0001		0.0092
<complete elementary	4.00 (2.38-6.72)		2.88 (1.59-5.21)
Some/complete middle school	2.46 (1.58-3.83)		2.03 (1.24-3.33)
Some/complete technical high school	2.37 (1.11-5.05)		1.98 (0.89-4.38)
Some/complete preparatory high school	1.67 (1.09-2.58)		1.56 (0.99-2.45)
>high school (ref)	1.00		1.00
Residence		<0.0001		0.0140
Urban (ref)	1.00		1.00
Rural	2.22 (1.59-3.10)		1.62 (1.10-2.38)
Region		0.0014		0.0004
Pacific North	0.74 (0.39-1.39)		0.63 (0.32-1.24)
North Central Gulf	1.87 (1.11-3.15)		1.62 (0.93-2.81)
Bajio	1.27 (0.78-2.09)		0.93 (0.55-1.59)
Central	0.71 (0.43-1.17)		0.49 (0.28-0.84)
Mexico City (ref)	1.00		1.00
Southeast	1.44 (0.90-2.29)		1.13 (0.69-1.87)
Attitude toward emergency contraceptive pills		0.0034		0.0009
Liberal	0.48 (0.29-0.79)		0.41 (0.24-0.71)
Conservative (ref)	1.00		1.00
Prior knowledge about emergency contraceptive pills		0.0020		0.1400
Yes	0.61 (0.45-0.84)		0.74 (0.52-1.06)
No (ref)	1.00		1.00
Parity		0.0206
0 (ref)	1.00		na
1	1.44 (0.94-2.20)		na
>=2	2.02 (1.13-3.60)		na
Sex		0.0326
Male (ref)	1.00		na
Female	1.38 (1.03-1.85)		na
Marital status		0.0473
Never-married (ref)	1.00		na
Consensual union	1.22 (0.62-2.40)		na
Married	1.67 (1.14-2.45)		na
Divorced/separated	0.51 (0.10-2.54)		na
Attendance at religious services		0.0512
>=once a week	1.34 (1.00-1.80)		na
<once a week (ref)	1.00		na
Religious identification		0.1660
Catholic (ref)	1.00		na
Other	1.36 (0.82-2.27)		na
Not religious	0.77 (0.52-1.15)		na
Notes: All p-values are from the likelihood ratio test. ref=reference group. na=not applicable, because variable was not included in the model.

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TABLE 5. Odds ratios (and 95% confidence intervals) from univariate and multivariate analyses of the association between selected characteristics and the likelihood of having liberal, rather than moderate, opinions about abortion
Characteristic	Univariate		Multivariate
Characteristic	Odds ratio	p-value	Odds ratio	p-value
Knows the legal status of abortion		0.8960		0.1300
Yes	0.97 (0.66-1.44)		0.72 (0.47-1.10)
No (ref)	1.00		1.00
Region	<0.0001		0.0002
Pacific North	0.26 (0.11-0.63)		0.29 (0.12-0.69)
North Central Gulf	0.63 (0.33-1.18)		0.61 (0.31-1.12)
Bajio	0.25 (0.12-0.51)		0.23 (0.11-0.49)
Central	0.35 (0.19-0.62)		0.33 (0.18-0.62)
Mexico City (ref)	1.00		1.00
Southeast	0.49 (0.28-0.86)		0.53 (0.30-0.93)
Knows someone who has used emergency contraceptive pills		0.0028		0.0230
Yes	2.51 (1.40-4.51)		2.18 (1.15-4.13)
No (ref)	1.00		1.00
Knows someone who has had an abortion		0.0138		0.1700
Yes	1.75 (1.13-2.71)		1.49 (0.93-2.39)
No (ref)	1.00		1.00
Age		0.0445
15-17	0.64 (0.41-1.00)		na
18-24 (ref)		1.00	na
Prior knowledge about emergency contraceptive pills		0.0777
Yes	1.42 (0.96-2.10)		na
No (ref)	1.00		na
Sex		0.1770
Male (ref)	1.00		na
Female	1.31 (0.89-1.93)		na
Attendance at religious services		0.1092
>=once a week	0.72 (0.48-1.08)		na
<once a week (ref)	1.00		na
Religious identification		0.1072
Catholic (ref)	1.00		na
Other	0.50 (0.19-1.32)		na
Not religious	1.35 (0.85-2.14)		na
Registered to vote		0.1241
Yes (ref)	1.00		na
No	0.92 (0.51-1.67)		na
Not eligible	0.63 (0.40-0.99)		na
Political party identification		0.0534
PAN (ref)†	1.00		na
Other	1.20 (0.71-2.01)		na
None	0.67 (0.36-1.25)		na
Not eligible to vote	0.61 (0.37-1.02)		na
Attitude toward emergency contraceptive pills		0.1768
Liberal	1.87 (0.71-4.93)		na
Conservative (ref)	1.00		na
†PAN is the National Action Party. Notes: All p-values are from the likelihood ratio test. ref=reference group. na=not applicable, because variable was not included in the model.

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