WASHINGTON, August 2, 2002 (LSN.ca) – In a major survey with stark implications for conservative Jewish leaders, researchers have found that Jewish college students are generally much more pro-abortion than their non-Jewish counterparts. Data from freshmen at 424 U.S. colleges in 1999 was analyzed by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). The study by Linda J. Sax of UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute compared responses from 8,000 Jewish students and 232,000 non-Jewish students finding that 89.3% of Jewish students agreed that “abortion should be legal” compared to 52.3% of non-Jews. The study, which was sponsored by the Jewish campus organization Hillel, also found that 82.1% of Jewish students believe “same sex couples should have the right to legal marital status” compared to 53.4% of non-Jewish students.
Major differences between Jews and non-Jews were also demonstrated in areas of casual sex and attendance at religious services. While only a minority (38.3%) of non-Jewish respondents agreed that “If two people really like each other, it’s all right for them to have sex even if they’ve known each other for only a very short time,” 60.9% of Jewish students agreed with the statement.
Perhaps explaining the other findings, the study reports: “Only 13.3 percent of Jewish freshmen report ‘frequent’ attendance at religious services during the year prior to entering college, compared to nearly half (46.6 percent) among non-Jews.” The full study is available online at: https://www.hillel.org/Hillel/NewHille.nsf/fcb8259ca861ae57852567d30043ba26/0ef7a4133951f0ba85256bdc004ca04b//AJF_web.pdf