ISSUES
Limited choices
What's going on?
When it comes to abortion, we often hear the slogan, “My body, my choice.” But the reality of abortion is all too often far from that simple.
Women who seek out an abortion do so for any number of reasons. Common ones are: relationship problems; financial difficulties; feeling like they won’t be a good mother; work or study obligations; lack of emotional and social support to raise a child well; or pressure from partners, family members or friends. Some women seeking an abortion are doing so at times of great upheaval in their lives: separating from a partner; losing a job; or moving house. Any choice to have an abortion is made in a context that involves multiple considerations, people, and situations.
On top of that, many women can be ambivalent about their abortion decision – sometimes thinking it’s the best way forward, other times wanting to keep their babies. Some women even carry this ambivalence into the abortion clinic, wishing to go home, but feeling like they’ve already begun the process so they should see it through.
And then there are the women who are actively coerced into having an abortion against their own desires. A 2018 study by the National Council of Independent Women’s Refuges Inc found that 27% of their study’s respondents had experienced a partner trying to coerce them into having an abortion, and 31.7% of their respondents had experienced a partner deliberately trying to get them to miscarry. One respondent relates, “When I was 17 my then BF [boyfriend] shoved the pills down the back of my throat when I started to back out of the termination.”
When it comes to abortion, we often hear the slogan, “My body, my choice.” But the reality of abortion is all too often far from that simple.
Women who seek out an abortion do so for any number of reasons. Common ones are: relationship problems; financial difficulties; feeling like they won’t be a good mother; work or study obligations; lack of emotional and social support to raise a child well; or pressure from partners, family members or friends. Some women seeking an abortion are doing so at times of great upheaval in their lives: separating from a partner; losing a job; or moving house. Any choice to have an abortion is made in a context that involves multiple considerations, people, and situations.
On top of that, many women can be ambivalent about their abortion decision – sometimes thinking it’s the best way forward, other times wanting to keep their babies. Some women even carry this ambivalence into the abortion clinic, wishing to go home, but feeling like they’ve already begun the process so they should see it through.
And then there are the women who are actively coerced into having an abortion against their own desires. A 2018 study by the National Council of Independent Women’s Refuges Inc found that 27% of their study’s respondents had experienced a partner trying to coerce them into having an abortion, and 31.7% of their respondents had experienced a partner deliberately trying to get them to miscarry. One respondent relates, “When I was 17 my then BF [boyfriend] shoved the pills down the back of my throat when I started to back out of the termination.”
Why should we care?
Abortion is a big deal: it ends a woman’s pregnancy and a human life, and it can have a life-long negative impact on the woman. Abuse and active coercion should play no part in bringing a woman to an abortion clinic. Nor should more passive forms of coercion from partners, family, and friends.
That women may choose an abortion because they lack the finances to care for their child, or because they don’t have enough support, or because they don’t think they could carry on with their job or their studies is an indictment on our society and its support for women and families. Women shouldn’t have to resort to abortion because we as a society, as employers, and as family, neighbours and friends won’t enable them to keep their babies.
Abortion is a big deal: it ends a woman’s pregnancy and a human life, and it can have a life-long negative impact on the woman. Abuse and active coercion should play no part in bringing a woman to an abortion clinic. Nor should more passive forms of coercion from partners, family, and friends.
That women may choose an abortion because they lack the finances to care for their child, or because they don’t have enough support, or because they don’t think they could carry on with their job or their studies is an indictment on our society and its support for women and families. Women shouldn’t have to resort to abortion because we as a society, as employers, and as family, neighbours and friends won’t enable them to keep their babies.
What can we do about it?
- Increase financial support to struggling pregnant women and their families
- Provide more funding for community groups that work with women and young families
- Extend paid parental leave provisions to women in casual and contracting work
- Ensure any woman who requests an abortion is seen by a counsellor who is trained in detecting coercion
For more information see: K Burry et al, Reproductive coercion in Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington: National Collection of Independent Women’s Refuges Inc, 2018); M Kirkman et al, “Abortion is a difficult solution to a problem: a discursive analysis of interviews with women considering or undergoing abortion in Australia,” in Women’s Studies International Forum (2011) 34: 121-129; RK Jones et al, “More than poverty: disruptive events among women having abortions in the USA,” in Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care (2013) 39(1): 36-43; PK Coleman et al, “Women who suffered emotionally from abortion: a qualitative synthesis of their experiences,” in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (2017) 22(4): 113-118.
More things we need to address: |
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