‘High profile health facilities can add to your trouble’: Women, stigma and un/safe abortion in Kenya
This paper analyses women's perspectives on abortion stigma and safety as well as choice of pregnancy termination services
Abstract
Public health discourses on safe abortion assume the term to be unambiguous. However, qualitative evidence elicited from Kenyan women treated for complications of unsafe abortion contrasted sharply with public health views of abortion safety. For these women, safe abortion implied pregnancy termination procedures and services that concealed their abortions, shielded them from the law, were cheap and identified through dependable social networks. Participants contested the notion that poor quality abortion procedures and providers are inherently dangerous, asserting them as key to women's preservation of a good self, management of stigma, and protection of their reputation, respect, social relationships, and livelihoods. Greater public health attention to the social dimensions of abortion safety is urgent.
This research is funded under the Department for International Development’s Strengthening Evidence for Programming on Unintended Pregnancy (STEP UP) which is led by the Population Council
Citation
Izugbara, C.O.; Egesa, C.; Okelo, R. High profile health facilities can add to your trouble : Women, stigma and un/safe abortion in Kenya. Social Science and Medicine (2015) 141: 9-18. [DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.07.019]