SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE BEGINNING OF HUMAN LIFE: AN ANALYSIS OF TEXTUAL ELEMENTS IN BRAZIL AND SPAIN

Perspectives on the beginning of human life encompass various criteria, such as fertilization between sperm and ovum, the onset of brain activities, the viability of the fetus outside the uterus, among others. Faced with these indicators, this study aims to analyze the social representations of Brazilian and Spanish students regarding the beginning of human life and their psychosocial anchors, particularly in human values and political partisanship. To do so, 424 university students participated, with 192 in Brazil (M=23.11; SD=6.2) and in Spain (M=19.72; SD=5.7). Participants in both countries answered a self-report questionnaire containing an open question about the beginning of human life, the Values Profile Questionnaire (VPQ), and sociodemographic questions (age, gender, socioeconomic class, and political spectrum positioning). Analyses were conducted using the Iramuteq software, through the Descending Hierarchical Classification (DHC) procedure. The results, for both the Brazilian and Spanish samples, formed five thematic classes. Social representations for the Brazilian sample stood out for arguments exploring the possibility of the fetus being considered a potential life. In the Spanish sample, the emphasis was on the biological aspects of human development. From this perspective, it can be observed that the representational differences are presented by Brazilian and Spanish students regarding the beginning of human life, and that these variations also stem from their social group memberships.