The influence of Christianity on infertility regulation in Migori division of Migori district
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Date
2012-05-07
Authors
Arudo, Tobias Opiyo
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Abstract
The primary concern of this thesis was to investigate whether there are existing relationships between fertility regulation methods, knowledge of and acceptance of contraceptives and church affiliation. It was the contention of the study that while different churches may be supporting or are against the various methods, they may consequently influence their members towards knowledge and usage of different methods.
Such influence may either be directly or indirectly induced. These may be passed through various church activities, doctrine for the church, church practices and membership groupings. Through them, the members are able to develop certain beliefs and attitudes, which the study has attempted to isolate for each church sampled.
In order to achieve the study aims, three churches were sampled; namely SDA, Catholic and Legio Maria. SDA was selected as a less conservative church which does not only allow their members to use both AFP and NFP, but they also distribute the contraceptives. The Catholic Church was selected due to its conservative nature, which stresses the use of NFP. It is opposed to AFP. The third church, Legio Maria was selected due to its more conservative and syncretic religious approach. It mixes traditional belief systems and Christian teachings borrowing more from the Catholic group. It is known to be opposed to AFP. Having these ideas in the background, the study sampled one hundred and twenty respondents with a distribution of forty from each church to help complete questionnaires using survey research technique. Both men and women sampled equally and interviewed. To bring out a balanced result, the stratified-radial-random-sample-techniques was applied. These approaches were meant to help cover all adult age groups from age fifteen and above and were sampled from a wide geographical region.
Besides the questionnaire, the study applied interviews and secondary resources to help provide more information about the churches sampled. The researcher further applied participant observation to help counter check the responses given in the questionnaires and interview.
The field data collected by the questionnaire was later
Submitted for statistical analysis to help determine whether relationships existed between knowledge or acceptance or various fertility regulation methods and:
(i) Church affiliation by attendance or commitment,
(ii) Specific churches and their attendance,
(iii) Specific churches and their commitment.
Chi-square statistical methodology was used to determine the relationships mentioned above. In each case, the significance of a particular relationship between the variables was determined at 0.05 level of significance. To arrive statistical figures the statistics was computed using the computerized SPSS programme. The final results were analyzed and summary tables presented at the end of each sub-section with extra detailed tables presented in the appendices.
The significance of relationship wherever they were proved, meant that the church affiliation, attendance or commitment does have an important contribution to either knowledge or acceptance of use of the specific fertility regulation method. It is therefore necessary to point out that in cases where the church does not have influence, necessary positive policies need to be adopted to help create both awareness and change of attitudes towards the use of the methods.
Description
The HQ 63.A7
Keywords
Birth control -- religions aspects//Church and social problems