Impact of Religion on the Attitudes toward Abortion and Contraception Use in the Contemporary Taiwan

Studies have shown that religion is strongly associated with opposition of abortion in the U.S. However, little is known about the effects of religion in non-Western societies, where non-Judeo Christian religious traditions have been dominant. Using a nationally representative sample of married women in Taiwan, we investigate how religion affects attitudes toward abortion and contraception use in a Chinese cultural context. Our analysis indicates that conservative religious groups, Taiwan Protestants and the New Religious Movement (Yi-Guan-Dao), are more likely to disapprove of abortion, particularly when household financial constraints or out-of-wedlock pregnancy is the reason, compared to Chinese traditional religionists (i.e. Buddhists and Taoists). However, Chinese traditional religionists tend to disapprove of birth control, except for sterilization after reaching the desired number of children. The nonreligious tend to favor abortion and birth control more under all circumstances. Despite these attitudinal differences, we find no significant effect of religion in predicting the likelihood of having abortion. 2 INTRODUCTION Research has shown that religion is strongly associated with opposition of abortion in the United States. In particular, Catholicism and Conservative Protestantism have influenced practice and attitudes toward abortion, and put contraceptive use under debate. However, scholars know little about how religious beliefs affect abortion attitudes in non-Western societies, particularly where non-Judeo Christian traditions are dominant. Taiwan is an ideal case for testing the association and consistency of the relationship between religious traditions and abortion behaviors and attitudes. Being one of the fast developing regions in East Asia, Taiwan has transited from a primarily agricultural society to a high industrialized society during the last half century. With its economic development, Taiwan's fertility rate has decreased dramatically to be below the replacement level. In 2004, the total fertility rate was merely 1.2. At the same time, abortion has become popular. According to one of the official reports from the Taiwan Institute of Family Planning, the number of abortion was estimated to be 320,000 per year. Among non-governmental medical statistics, the estimated number is above 500,000 annually. Not only did these numbers make Taiwan the society with the highest abortion rate in East Asia, but such abortion rates were also substantially higher than those in Western countries (e.g., six times higher than the abortion rate of France). Taiwan is also a society of considerable religious diversity (Tamney and Chiang 2002). As shown in many non-western countries, modernization process did not make Taiwan more secular. The majority …