Availability Of Abortion Services Research Articles

Abortion information, an Irish case

On October 4, 1991 the European Court (EC) handed down a decision upholding the right of the Irish courts to prohibit the distribution of information on the availability of abortion services in another European Community state, provided that the information was not distributed on behalf of an economic operator established in the other member state. The matter ended up in the EC when the High Court of Ireland asked for a preliminary ruling in a case involving the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) and officers of a student group that had no ties to abortion clinics in the UK. The EC was first asked to determine if medical termination of pregnancy constituted a service within the meaning of Article 60 of the European Community Treaty, which it did so rule. The next question was whether restriction of information about abortion clinics constituted restriction on the freedom to supply services according to Article 59; but the link between the students and the clinics was too weak. The students were not acting in concert with the clinics but were merely providing their names and addresses. The defendants maintained that the ban restricted their right to express themselves freely under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights; however, the court ruled that it had no jurisdiction with regard to national legislation lying outside the scope of European Community law.

Epidemiology of legal abortion in Italy.

The paper reports on the trends of induced abortion in Italy since its legalization in 1978. Data collected through the national surveillance system show that the abortion rates and ratios in Italy, after an initial increase, have been stable in the last four years, and are comparable to those of other European countries. Italian women seeking abortion, however, are generally older and more frequently married and parous than in most other western countries. The data on abortion services and procedures show a slow improvement with increasing use of local rather than general anaesthesia, suction rather than surgical curettage, and outpatient rather than inpatient admissions. Post-abortion complications are infrequent and there have been no cases of death from legal abortion. The paper attempts to analyse the effect of legal abortion on fertility and on other maternal and child health indices, reaching tentative conclusions on the contribution of the legalization of abortion to the improvement of reproductive health. Uneven availability of abortion services, however, is currently a major problem; in many of the less developed areas of the country, it is estimated that as many as 50% of abortions are still performed outside the legal abortion service network.

A New Strategy for Preventing Unintended Teenage Childbearing

desired, availability of abortion services. If these conditions are fulfilled, then most teenagers will have the resources to be able to delay childbearing until they are ready to assume the responsibilities of parenthood. But capacity is not the only prerequisite; without the desire to avoid early motherhood, a young woman will not effectively acquire the knowledge she needs or use the appropriate preventive services. The motivation to avoid motherhood stems from the adolescent's knowledge and understanding of the consequences of early childbearing, and her recognition of the relevance of these consequences to her own life. Unless a young woman believes that childbearing during adolescence will limit her opportunities in

Abortion and Government Policy

In this discussion of the form that a consistent politically and morally acceptable publicly debated government policy on the availability of abortion services might take in the U.S. the author recognizes that no position will be fully acceptable to both pro and anti abortion groups and that neither polar position has the overwhelming support needed to implement its goals completely. It is also apparent that there is no possibility of a completely neutral position for the government to take. The argument in favor of abortion services being supplied for the poor at government expense rests on 4 premises: 1) A woman has a legal right to choose to have an abortion. 2) The law provides for a free choice and government should do nothing to hinder that choice. 3) Medicaid was created to provide medical services for the poor. 4) It would be unjust and discriminatory to exempt abortion services. A consistent and acceptable government policy on abortion would be one in which the government neither encourages nor discourages abortion and limits its role to the provision of information the development of equitable regulations to control the safety and availability of abortion the support of research and training and the payment for abortions for those for whom it subsidizes other medical care. To realize such a public policy abortion opponents and advocates will need to moderate their demands and attacks on each other and abortion opponents should refrain from injecting religion into their arguments. Finally abortion rights advocates should do everything they can to reduce the need for abortion while working to see that those who need abortions can get them.

Community Determinants of U.S. Legal Abortion Rates

The availability of abortion services--the number of facilities and the number of types of agencies providing abortions--is the most powerful determinant of variations in abortion rates in U.S. metropolitan communities. The increase in abortion availability is also the most important factor in explaining the increase in abortion rates that occurred between 1973 and 1975. Other factors affecting abortion rates (but less substantially) include rural residence, population density, female labor force participation, the proportion Catholic and the proportion receiving public assistance.

United States government policy on abortion.

Federal government policy in the United States lacks uniformity, as is indicated by the fact that the Dept. of Defense permits the performance of abortion for medical and mental health reasons, the Office of Economic Opportunity states that no project funds may be used for any surgical procedure intended to result in abortion, and the Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare has no policy concerning abortion in its programs but that abortion is a reimbursable expense under Title XIX Medicaid payments in enrolled states. This ambiguity of the federal government is considered a reflection of the complexity of the issue and the lack of clear consensus concerning abortion among the American public. Factors that federal family planning officials must consider are: 1) the ethical and moral considerations that confront the individual citizen making a private decusion about abortion; 2) legal and constitutional issues, such as that of discrimination in the availability of abortion services on economic grounds; and 3) the relationship of abortion to public service needs and public health considerations, given that 1/4-1/5 of pregnancies in the United States end in legal or illegal abortion. Clandestine abortion constitutes a significant health problem, accounting for a significant proportion of maternal mortality, especially among the poor (the 1967 rate of reported mortality due to abortion with sepsis being 7 times greater for nonwhites than whites). The Office of Economic Opportunity in reassessing its current policy needs to ascertain the standards of medical care, cost projections, and logistics of providing abortion services. It is recommended that abortion services be combined with serious efforts to provide effective subsequent contraception, as abortion as an exclusive method of birth control would cost up to $2000 per year while the provision of high quality family planning services is $60-$80 per woman per year.