What is it about?
Abortion is a common medical procedure, but mostly takes place in outpatient clinics. Why is abortion performed only selectively in hospitals and private practices?
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Why is it important?
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was supposed to eliminate unequal access to abortion care. The low number of abortions provided in hospitals and private practices, however, suggest that even if the general access problem has been largely rectified, there is still unequal access to some kinds of abortion.
Perspectives
This study shows how social expectations, especially about how pregnant women should behave, have implications for whether doctors help them secure the care they want. In the charged landscape of abortion politics, doctors' reliance on social criteria can invite others--including legislators who lack medical knowledge--to similarly rely on social knowledge, potentially even to restrict access to medical care.
Dr Katrina Kimport
University of California San Francisco
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Policy Brief, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, November 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0022146516675306.
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