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“You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Structural barriers such as a restrictive legal environment, limited medical resources, and high-costs inhibit access to safe abortion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); these barriers are exacerbated by two decades of conflict. Socio-normative barriers further complicate access to safe...

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Autores principales: Casey, Sara E, Steven, Victoria J, Deitch, Julianne, Dumas, Erin Files, Gallagher, Meghan C, Martinez, Stephanie, Morris, Catherine N, Rafanoharana, Raoza Vololona, Wheeler, Erin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7887765/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31533559
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2019.1571309
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author Casey, Sara E
Steven, Victoria J
Deitch, Julianne
Dumas, Erin Files
Gallagher, Meghan C
Martinez, Stephanie
Morris, Catherine N
Rafanoharana, Raoza Vololona
Wheeler, Erin
author_facet Casey, Sara E
Steven, Victoria J
Deitch, Julianne
Dumas, Erin Files
Gallagher, Meghan C
Martinez, Stephanie
Morris, Catherine N
Rafanoharana, Raoza Vololona
Wheeler, Erin
author_sort Casey, Sara E
collection PubMed
description Structural barriers such as a restrictive legal environment, limited medical resources, and high-costs inhibit access to safe abortion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); these barriers are exacerbated by two decades of conflict. Socio-normative barriers further complicate access to safe abortion and post-abortion care (PAC) in DRC, where fear of abortion-related stigma may lead women to avoid PAC services. Programme partners support the Ministry of Health to provide good quality contraceptive and PAC services in North and South Kivu, DRC. This paper presents results from focus group discussions that explored community members’ attitudes towards women who induce abortion and their care-seeking behaviour in programme areas. Results indicate that while abortion stigma was widespread, community members’ attitudes towards women who induced abortions were not one-dimensional. Although they initially expressed negative opinions regarding women who induced abortion, beliefs became more nuanced as discussion shifted to the specific situations that could motivate a woman to do so. For example, many considered it understandable that a woman would induce abortion after rape: perhaps unsurprising, given the prevalence of conflict-related sexual violence in this area. While community members believed that fear of stigma or associated negative social consequences dissuaded women from seeking PAC, a majority believed that all women should have access to life-saving PAC. This commitment to ensuring that women who induced abortion have access to PAC, in addition to the professed acceptability of induced abortion in certain situations, indicates that there could be an opening to destigmatise abortion access in this context.
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spelling pubmed-78877652021-03-30 “You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo Casey, Sara E Steven, Victoria J Deitch, Julianne Dumas, Erin Files Gallagher, Meghan C Martinez, Stephanie Morris, Catherine N Rafanoharana, Raoza Vololona Wheeler, Erin Sex Reprod Health Matters Research Articles Structural barriers such as a restrictive legal environment, limited medical resources, and high-costs inhibit access to safe abortion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); these barriers are exacerbated by two decades of conflict. Socio-normative barriers further complicate access to safe abortion and post-abortion care (PAC) in DRC, where fear of abortion-related stigma may lead women to avoid PAC services. Programme partners support the Ministry of Health to provide good quality contraceptive and PAC services in North and South Kivu, DRC. This paper presents results from focus group discussions that explored community members’ attitudes towards women who induce abortion and their care-seeking behaviour in programme areas. Results indicate that while abortion stigma was widespread, community members’ attitudes towards women who induced abortions were not one-dimensional. Although they initially expressed negative opinions regarding women who induced abortion, beliefs became more nuanced as discussion shifted to the specific situations that could motivate a woman to do so. For example, many considered it understandable that a woman would induce abortion after rape: perhaps unsurprising, given the prevalence of conflict-related sexual violence in this area. While community members believed that fear of stigma or associated negative social consequences dissuaded women from seeking PAC, a majority believed that all women should have access to life-saving PAC. This commitment to ensuring that women who induced abortion have access to PAC, in addition to the professed acceptability of induced abortion in certain situations, indicates that there could be an opening to destigmatise abortion access in this context. Taylor & Francis 2019-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7887765/ /pubmed/31533559 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2019.1571309 Text en © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
spellingShingle Research Articles
Casey, Sara E
Steven, Victoria J
Deitch, Julianne
Dumas, Erin Files
Gallagher, Meghan C
Martinez, Stephanie
Morris, Catherine N
Rafanoharana, Raoza Vololona
Wheeler, Erin
“You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
title “You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
title_full “You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
title_fullStr “You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
title_full_unstemmed “You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
title_short “You must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in North and South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo
title_sort “you must first save her life”: community perceptions towards induced abortion and post-abortion care in north and south kivu, democratic republic of the congo
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7887765/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31533559
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09688080.2019.1571309
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