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Serving for Five Years: What I Le arned About Reproductive Justice in Mozambique, at the Center of the World
Published in Danielle Laraque-Arena, Lauren J. Germain, Virginia Young, Rivers Laraque-Ho, Leadership at the Intersection of Gender and Race in Healthcare and Science, 2022
At the time I was puzzled about the juxtaposition of dangerous self-induced abortions with underuse of available family planning services. In discussion with community members, particularly in more rural parts of the district, I learned that many women and men characterized contraception and deliberate abortion equally as sins, in terms of both Christian dogma and the traditional spirituality that preceded and coexisted with Christianity. If anything, I heard from rural residents that contraception might be considered worse than abortion because contraception required habitual behavior and implied deliberate and daily defiance of the will of God and the natural world, a sign of misaligned or poor values. In addition, women in the communities worried that, instead of making the lives of women safer, expanded male condom use would serve as an accelerant for sexual relationships outside of primary partnership or marriage and further endanger the women's health and wellbeing.
The quest for wellness: Public health and environmental concerns
Published in Lois N. Magner, Oliver J. Kim, A History of Medicine, 2017
After World War II, abortion providers were more frequently threatened and harassed by politicians, journalists, and the police. Desperate women sometimes attempted self-induced abortions, which could lead to serious injuries, hemorrhage, infection, and death. Underground feminist networks helped women find abortionists. One of the most famous feminist networks, the Abortion Counseling Service of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, was generally known by the code name Jane. After Roe v. Wade, the network disbanded, but Jane became the subject of several books, essays, and plays.
Law, normative limits and women’s health
Published in Irehobhude O. Iyioha, Women’s Health and the Limits of Law, 2019
These conflicts were called into issue in several cases decided in Senegal. In the State v. Astou Diop,146 a pregnant woman was found guilty of self-induced abortion. The defendant had allegedly induced her own abortion with the use of drinks and medicinal products. In the State v. Mouscoye Sane (known as Mamy),147 the accused pregnant minor was charged with voluntarily performing her own abortion. She was found guilty and sentenced under Article 305 of the Criminal Code and Article 565 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. A charge of complicity to commit abortion was laid against the defendant in the State v. Landing Massaly148 and following a guilty verdict, the defendant was sentenced under Articles 45, 46 and 305 of the Criminal Code. In each of these cases, the courts’ ruling was based on the provisions of the Criminal Code – especially on Article 305, and on the basis of which the women were found guilty of crimes that were excused by other legislative provisions. The anomaly of the situation is aptly put by Mamadou Badji, who states that “the courts are inclined to rule in favour of the application of the criminal code, without referring to the law on reproductive health which derogates from it and legalises abortion in the situations provided for by law”.149 According to Badji: The courts are expected to interpret the law, taking into account all legal texts, in order to give a concrete basis to the texts authorising legal abortion, to make abortion effective and to integrate it into public reproductive health policies. As there are numerous high risk pregnancies for various reasons (reality of early marriages, frequent childbearing, difficult and late pregnancies), the State must ensure that women have access to means to control their fertility.150
Global Activist Mobilization to Support Safe Abortion in Restrictive Regimes
Published in Women's Reproductive Health, 2022
Self-managed abortion, self-induced abortion, home abortion, alternative abortion care, and community-based abortion are all terms that are used to describe abortion care that is provided and managed outside of medicolegal systems (Ojanen-Goldsmith & Dutton-Kenny, 2017; Ojanen-Goldsmith & Prager, 2016; Shaw, 2018). Although there are terminology preferences within the community of people who facilitate access to abortion outside of medicolegal systems—for example, I know community-based abortion providers who take issue with the term “self-managed abortion” (SMA) because they believe that all abortion care ought to be provided within a community of support—most people who are involved with this work recognize that they are connected to a global movement. SMA is the term used most frequently in the emerging literature on this topic; it covers experiences where people are managing their abortion without support, but it more frequently refers to experiences where people are managing their own abortion with both informational and emotional support from others.
Contraceptive Knowledge and Practices of Undergraduate Female Students at Makerere University, Uganda
Published in Women's Reproductive Health, 2020
Second, there have been unverified reports of university students carrying out risky self-induced abortions as a result of unwanted pregnancies. Some students are reported to be uncomfortable accessing contraceptive services (Guttmacher Institute, 2017), yet many of them have access to reproductive health information. It is therefore not uncommon for them to have high levels of contraceptive awareness but low uptake. However, some university students want more knowledge about how to use contraceptives, where to access them, and which ones to select (Kabir, Lliyasu, Abubakar, & Kabir, 2004). Contraceptive use is also associated with some side effects for some women, including excessive bleeding, weight gain, and other challenges (Nsubuga et al., 2016). These among other reasons may be the factors responsible for the low uptake of contraceptives among university students.
Sources, Providers and Self-Reported Complications among Indian Women Seeking Induced Abortion: Evidence from the National Family Health Survey (2015–16)
Published in International Journal of Sexual Health, 2018
Chander Shekhar, Manoj Alagarajan, Manas Ranjan Pradhan
The findings of our study are in keeping with other studies that found that women who delayed seeking induced abortion (beyond the first trimester of the gestational age) significantly increased the likelihood of reporting postabortion complications (Bartlett et al.,2004; Dalvie, 2008; Gaufberg, 2007; Guttmacher & IPAS, 2010). In contrast to other studies, however, our study found that women who induced abortion themselves or went to public health facilities had lower odds of reporting abortion complications. Women who had self-induced abortion and having a lower likelihood of reporting postabortion complications is very much possible if most of them had used the medical method of abortion. As for the public sector facilities having a lower likelihood of postabortion complications, it could be due to that most lower level public health facilities might be referring complicated or expected to be complicated abortion cases to nearby private facilities. Such a pattern of behavior has also been reported for other reproductive health services (delivery complications or post-delivery complications) in the past (Benson et al., 2015). Yet another reason could be that the law in India mandates second-trimester abortion cases to seek medical advice from two doctors. Given that most primary health centers and, in fact, many community health centers are equipped with only one doctor, and hence public health facilities could be referring second trimester abortion cases to private sector health facilities.