O processo de decisão pelo aborto: as experiências das mulheres em foco

Abstract

Induced abortion is an issue that raises controversy. In only three situations abortion is allowed in Brazil (rape, risk of death for the woman, and fetal anencephaly), and the broad legalization of abortion has been the subject of permanent debate in the Brazilian society. However, the experiences of women who have had abortions, the subject of the present work, are poorly known. We performed eight semi-structured interviews, in the year of 2014, with women who had abortions. Unlike most studies on the theme, the majority of the women we interviewed have high educational level, belong to the middle class, and are involved with the feminist movement. The interviews were analyzed using the content analysis technique. Only two among the interviewed women said they do not have the desire to have children. Among the women who declared to have the desire of having children, there were several reasons to abort, and the moment of life considered inappropriate at the time of the pregnancy was very important. Among the aspects that characterized the moment of life as unfit to continue the pregnancy, a distant-from-the-ideal-relationship with the partner was one of the most frequently stated reasons. The ideal of maternity was associated by the respondents to an ideal of family formation. The involvement of the women with feminist ideas was appointed as a supporting factor for the decision, especially in the sense that it decreases, to some extent, the sense of guilt. The decision for abortion was accompanied by reflection and doubt, and constituted a complex phenomenon involving a large range of aspects, from the womens conceptions of motherhood and sexuality before pregnancy, to their participation in social networks formed during the process of abortion.