Students’ Perception On Abortion: A Case Of Maasai Mara University

Abstract

Abortion has been a widely debated subject across the globe in some western European countries being legalized. Unsafe abortions being carried out in Kenya is a leading cause of maternal and mortality. In Kenya abortion is a crime unless under very special circumstances like saving the life of the mother. Nonetheless people still commit the crime through various ways that are harmful both to the mother and the unborn child and may even result to death. The need for secrecy to avoid being condemned, the law, and the perceived high cost of safer abortion, have been known to be the reason why so many of our young women die during this process as they seek help from community midwives, drug sellers and untrained helpers at lower costs. Some of the common methods that have been used include drinking tea that has a high concentration of tealeaves, drinking a lot of undiluted juice and in some cases even drinking a mixture of washing detergent like ‘omo’ has been said to do the trick. The purpose of this study is to determine the perception of abortion among social work students in Maasai Mara University and find out their take on how they think abortion affects people especially the mother afterwards. The general objective of this study is to determine the perception of social work students in Maasai Mara University concerning the topic abortion, while the specific objective of the study will be to find out what social, economic, cultural, and psychological factors that influence the perception or view of the students towards abortion. The theories that will be used are the ethical theories which include the teleological theory and the deontological theory according to the Kantian perspective. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, the study will apply the non-probability sampling method in which sampling will be used. The data of the study will be collected through the closed-ended questionnaires, and through interviews and group discussion and interactions. The study will apply both qualitative and quantitative data analysis method to analyze the collected questions. The data collected from the respondents will be analyzed by use of descriptive statistics comprising of tables graphs and pie charts. Therefore this study is conducted to determine the perception of students in Maasai Mara University on abortion and how the think it impacts those who carry it out.