Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1479276
2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 18 SEPTEMBER 2022 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The survey registered a sig- nificant drop in the number of people who agree with impris- onment for women. Although the 2022 findings show that 27.5% agree with jailing wom- en, this represents more than a 10-point drop over last year's results. The young aged between 16 and 35 are the strongest op- ponents to sending women to prison with 71.1% disagree- ing with existing legislation. Among the young, 16.7% agree with sending women who have an abortion to prison. An absolute majority opposed to jail time also exists among those aged between 36 and 50 (52.8%). Within this cohort, 26.1% agree with prison sen- tences. Among those aged between 51 and 65, 48.2% disagree with sending women to jail as op- posed to 34.3%, who believe women should be imprisoned. There is a more even split among those over 65, with 35.8% disagreeing with sending women to prison, while 36.5% agree. The findings show no differ- ence in how men and women view the topic. The results show that 53.7% of women and 52.8% of men dis- agree with imprisoning women who terminate their pregnancy. On the flip side, 26.3% of wom- en and 29.2% of men, agree that women should face jail time. When analysed by political allegiance, the survey shows that 58.6% of people who vot- ed for the Labour Party in last March's election disagree with sending women to jail, while 29.7% agree. A relative majority of Nation- alist Party voters (48.3%) disa- gree with jail time for women who have an abortion as op- posed to 36.2% who agree. Less lenient towards medical professionals But while the general trend has continued to shift away from the notion of punishing women by sending them to prison, people remain less le- nient towards medical profes- sionals, albeit less pronounced than last year. A relative majority of 44.8%, down from 55% last year, agree that medical professionals who conduct an abortion or assist in the termination of a pregnan- cy should face jail time. The results also show that 37.3% disagree, which represents an increase of seven points since 2021. The young are the most le- nient on criminal liability for medical professionals with an absolute majority of 59.4% dis- agreeing that they should be sent to jail. This represents an increase of almost seven points on last year's results. There is almost an even split among those aged between 36 and 50 with 41.6% agreeing with jail time and 39.1% against. More pronounced majorities in favour of prison time for medical professionals are found among the older age groups. 57.7% and 55.9% of those aged between 51 and 65, and pen- sioners respectively, agree with punishing professionals by sending them to prison. Once again, there is little dif- ference between how men and women view the matter. Al- though registering drops from last year, 44.2% and 45.6% of women and men respective- ly agree with prison terms for professionals who assist in an abortion. Last year, these fig- ures stood at 52.6% and 52.2% respectively. In terms of political alle- giance, 51% of Labour voters in 2022 agree with prison terms for medical professionals, while 38.6% disagree. A similar pat- tern is found among PN voters with 50% in favour of jail terms, while 31% against. The survey, conducted in Au- gust, came in the wake of the Andrea Prudente case that cast an international spotlight on Malta's draconian anti-abor- tion laws. Prudente, an American tour- ist, started to miscarry during her stay in Malta but doctors refused to terminate the preg- nancy despite telling her it was unviable because the foetus still had a heartbeat. As a result, the woman's health was put at risk until she was eventually flown out to Spain, where the pregnancy was terminated. The survey was conducted between 2 and 19 August and 616 respondents opted to re- ply. Stratified random sampling using age and gender was used to replicate the general popula- tion. For the overall results, the margin of error is estimated at 4.8% for a 95% confidence in- terval. Results were compared to a similar survey carried out in April 2021. Absolute majority opposed to jail time for women who seek abortion The young aged between 16 and 35 are the strongest opponents to sending women to prison with 71.1% disagreeing with existing legislation. Among the young, 16.7% agree with sending women who have an abortion to prison Although the 2022 findings show that 27.5% agree with jailing women, this represents more than a 10-point drop over last year's results