Background: Unsafe abortion is a significant cause of maternal mortality and morbidity globally. In 2005, the
Ethiopian penal code was amended to permit abortion under specific circumstances to minimize the problem. However, its
practice is hampered by lack of awareness of the revised criminal code and access to the service. Methods: Institution based
cross-sectional qualitative and quantitative study has been conducted to assess awareness and attitude of university and
college female students’ to the law. A sample of 845 students from one university and three colleges of Arba Minch town
were selected by multistage sampling method. Data entry, cleaning and coding were performed using SPSS version 16 and
analyzed with the same soft ware. Associations between dependent and independent variables were tested using logistic
regression. P-values > 0.05 were considered to be statistically significant in all cases. Result: Twenty three (43%) among 54
pregnancies were reported as ended with induced abortion. Ethiopia’s abortion law was expected to increase women’s
access to safe abortion services but only 261 (32.1%) of college and university students of Arba Minch town were aware
about this law after 6 years of liberalization. Better level of awareness had been recorded in health science students as
compared with natural science students (OR (95% CI) = 2.8 (1.9, 4.2). Only 246 (30.3%) among all participants (813) were
found to have positive attitude towards criteria set to induce abortion. This is roughly in line with health professionals’
attitude at the time safe abortion service was on the process of liberalization. Conclusion: Religion, college (specialty) and
sexual experience of students found to be the factors affecting attitude. The knowledge gap may let the students continually
suffer from unsafe abortion sequel; so stakeholders should work on awareness creation