Christian Psychology
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In contrast with research focusing positively on
happiness, Viktor Frankl (1965, 1967, 1968), a Jewish
psychiatrist who spent three years in a Nazi concentra-
tion camp, coined the term “existential vacuum” to refer
to the void resulting from lack of meaning in life that
could be experienced in various ways such as boredom,
or frustration, or apathy, or distraction such as intense
need to make money to temporarily block out the
emptiness. Frankl maintained that “will-to-meaning” is
uniquely human in that animals are not concerned with
meaning. His “logotherapy”, practiced both in and
after the concentration camp, is intended to increase
will-to-meaning. This technique differs from traditional
psychotherapy in its stress on meaning and purpose in
life, and the conditions under which these are threat-
ened. Within this framework, it would appear to follow
that since both suicide and abortion are sinful from the
Christian point of view and a repudiation of the good-
ness of life from the existential point of view, then both
abortion and suicide would be likely to be associated
with an existential vacuum.
Europe appeared to be an appropriate continent to
investigate this since, within the Christian family, it has
Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox traditions.
North America has only three countries, and is possibly
less religiously diverse. The continent and the country
of Australia present a similar limited opportunity for
analysis. South America traditionally has all Catho-
lic countries. The Philippines is the only Christian
(Catholic) country in Asia.
European societies are complex, pluralistic, and
multi-faith. Freedom of religion exists in European
countries as it does in the United States and Canada.
The past history of church and state being intertwined
enriched the cultures and is probably more visible in
Europe. Even in the officially atheistic Soviet Union,
the beautiful onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches
continue to be part of the Russian culture. Westminster
Abby in London is a center for both the Anglican reli-
gion and the Royal Family even though the latter now
has a primarily symbolic function.
This research is in the context of the predominant
Christian religions in Europe and their official positions
that are opposed to abortion and suicide. Catholi-
cism is the predominant religion in Belgium, Croatia,
Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia,
and Slovenia. Lutheranism is the predominant religion
in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Norway, and
Sweden. The Eastern Orthodox religion is predominant
in Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania, Russia, and the Ukraine.
In Germany and Switzerland, there is no predominant
religion. Germany is 33% Catholic and 34% Protes-
tant, primarily Lutheran. Switzerland is 42% Catholic
and 38% Protestant, primarily Calvinist and Lutheran.
It is here parenthetically noted that denominational dif-
ferences are not a focus of the present research.
The following are the hypotheses:
1. Abortion rate and suicide rate will correlate
positively with each other.
2. Abortion rate will correlate negatively with
Subjective Well-being and Life Satisfaction
and Happiness ratings.
3. Suicide rate will correlate negatively with
Subjective Well-being and Life Satisfaction
and Happiness ratSubjective Well-being, Life
Satisfaction, and Happiness will correlate
positively with each other.
Method
Suicide rates in suicides per 100,000 people per year in
Europe were obtained from the World Health Or-
ganization (Wikipedia, 2008). Abortion rates were
obtained from the United Nations World Abortion
Policies (1999). The subjective well-being, happiness,
and life satisfaction indices were obtained from Ap-
pendix A of Inglehart et al. (2008). The latest year was
employed. Latest years ranged from 1999 to 2006.
The Inglehart et al. (2008) “Value Survey” has been
used in interviews in scores of countries with an average
sample size of 1400 respondents. Two variables were
assessed. One was life satisfaction for which the respon-
dents were asked how satisfied they were with their life
as a whole and was scored from 1 (not at all satisfied)
to 10 (very satisfied). The other variable was happiness,
for which the respondents were given four choices: very
happy (= 1), rather happy (= 2), not very happy (= 3),
and not at all happy (= 4). It should be borne in mind
that a higher happiness score means lower happiness.
With such a scoring procedure, the Happiness measure
is logically a measure of unhappiness. The scoring is
therefore reversed in the present study. For a com-
posite measure of subjective well-being, equal weight
was given to life satisfaction and happiness (Subjective
well-being = life satisfaction – 2.5 x happiness). The
maximum possible score is 7.5. The Ingelhart et al.
study was longitudinal in which surveys were conducted
at least up to 10 years apart. The present study used
the most current years since they were presumably most
relevant to the current circumstances. It is recognized
that this resulted in the most recent year not always
being the same. Methodological limitations, however,
ordinarily attenuate rather than inflate correlations;
so, the pattern of correlations in the present study was
deemed to be meaningful.
Results
Table 1 contains for the 26 European Christian coun-
tries the means for abortion rate, male and female sui-
cide rates, total suicide rate, Subject Well-Being, Hap-
piness, and Life Satisfaction. It should be remembered
that a lower happiness score indicates greater happiness.
For the correlations contained in Table 2, the happiness
scoring was reversed, however, so that high scores now
signal high happiness in a more intuitive way.
ABORTION AND SUICIDE RATES
