PubMed · 6581406
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J E McArthur. 1983-12-14. Abortion 1982.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6581406/
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In spite of restrictive legislation, practice of legal abortion has become liberal in Switzerland, bringing illegal abortions to disappear. Moreover, sex education and widespread contraception have reduced the number of legal abortions. Today, in spite of liberalization, the abortion rate is among the lowest worldwide. Prevention targeted specifically at migrant women and spreading knowledge about postcoital contraception might reduce it further. Liberalization in practice must be followed by liberalizing legislation.
Two folk medical conditions, "delayed" (atrasada) and "suspended" (suspendida) menstruation, are described as perceived by poor Brazilian women in Northeast Brazil. Culturally prescribed methods to "regulate" these conditions and provoke menstrual bleeding are also described, including ingesting herbal remedies, patent drugs, and modern pharmaceuticals. The ingestion of such self-administered remedies is facilitated by the cognitive ambiguity, euphemisms, folklore, etc., which surround conception and gestation. The authors argue that the ethnomedical conditions of "delayed" and "suspended" menstruation and subsequent menstrual regulation are part of the "hidden reproductive transcript" of poor and powerless Brazilian women. Through popular culture, they voice their collective dissent to the official, public opinion about the illegality and immorality of induced abortion and the chronic lack of family planning services in Northeast Brazil. While many health professionals consider women's explanations of menstrual regulation as a "cover-up" for self-induced abortions, such popular justifications may represent either an unconscious or artful manipulation of hegemonic, anti-abortion ideology expressed in prudent, unobtrusive and veiled ways. The development of safer abortion alternatives should consider women's hidden reproductive transcripts.
To achieve their desired fertility, women use a combination of contraception and abortion, and some societies also place constraints on marriage and sexual activity. The degree to which these means are adopted varies considerably, but for the foreseeable future abortion will remain an important element of fertility regulation. Globally, complications of unsafe abortion affect hundreds of thousands of women each year, and account for as many as 100,000 deaths annually (about two in ten maternal deaths), mainly in poor countries, where abortion typically remains illegal. Access to safe abortion is both essential and technically feasible and should be provided in combination with good quality family planning services.