Women’s embodied experiences of second trimester medical abortion

Abstract

Abortions in general, and second trimester abortions in particular, are experiences which in many contexts have limited sociocultural visibility. Research on second trimester abortion worldwide has focused on a range of associated factors including risks and acceptability of abortion methods, and characteristics and decision-making of women seeking the procedure. Scholarship to date has not adequately addressed the embodied physicality of second trimester abortion, from the perspective of women's lived experiences, nor how these experiences might inform future framings of abortion. To progress understandings of women's embodied experiences of second trimester abortion, we draw on the accounts of 18 women who had recently sought second trimester abortion in Scotland. We address four aspects of their experiences: later recognition of pregnancy; experiences of a second trimester pregnancy which ended in abortion; the ''labour'' of second trimester abortion; and the subsequent bodily transition. The paper has two key aims: Firstly, to make visible these experiences, and to consider how they relate to dominant sociocultural narratives of pregnancy; and secondly, to explore the concept

Framing a ‘social problem': Emotion in anti‐abortion activists' depiction of the abortion debate

“…For example, Husain and Kelly () present an ethnographic analysis of how women who have had abortions and who attended an anti‐abortion group were led through a series of increasingly public group rituals in which they were encouraged to represent their abortion experience in the group‐approved manner (such that they transitioned into becoming anti‐abortion activists). Research could also address the argumentative resources available for women who have had abortion to frame their decision and experience in alternative (more positive) terms (Beynon‐Jones, ; Purcell et al ., ) and contest the idea that abortion contradicts the ‘essential nature’ of women (Kumar, Hessini, & Mitchell, ). This is particularly important as there is evidence that if there is an association between abortion and psychological distress, it is bound up with (negative) societal representations of abortion and the stigma these engender (O'Donnell, O'Carroll, & Toole, ).…”

“…Although the precise form to these debates varies according to national context (Morgan, ), a key issue of contestation concerns foetal personhood (and even where abortion is legal it is rarely considered as solely a health care issue: Purcell, Brown, Melville, & McDaid, ). The language used in these debates (e.g., ‘foetus’ vs. ‘unborn child’) is strategically important (Reicher & Hopkins, 1996a) and has been shown to shape audience response (Mikołajczak & Bilewicz, ).…”

Characteristics of Women Who Present for Abortion Beyond the Legal Limit in Flanders, Belgium

“…Women who were accompanied by someone to the abortion center were less likely to present beyond the legal limit than women who were not accompanied. Besides accompanying someone to an appointment, people in a woman's supportive social network may facilitate abortion access by gathering information, locating services, providing transportation and even alleviating social stigmas associated with seeking abortion, while delays in seeking abortion care are more prevalent among women in troubled relationships or with an unsupportive partner …”

“…Early recognition of pregnancy has been consistently found to be associated with less delay in seeking abortion care . In our study, we included several factors that may facilitate the early recognition of pregnancy, including parity and having had a previous abortion.…”

Medicalization and Naturalization

“…Some feminist abortion scholars have begun to highlight the variation in people's abortion experiences, resisting this tendency to homogenize abortion (Lie et al, 2008;Purcell, Brown et al, 2017;Purcell, Cameron et al, 2017). Unfortunately, these accounts of physical and emotional variation rarely address the production of embodied difference, or why people experience abortion the way that they do.…”