Abortion is a difficult solution to a problem: A discursive analysis of interviews with women considering or undergoing abortion in Australia

SynopsisThere is little research on women's experience of abortion, despite its prevalence and considerable public debate. Women have abortions in a discursive environment that can pit the foetus against the woman and identifies motherhood as a woman's destiny. What does it mean to have an abortion in these circumstances? The research reported in this paper investigated abortion from the woman's perspective. Interviews were conducted with 60 women who had contacted a public pregnancy advisory service in Victoria, Australia. Discourse analysis revealed the women's primary discourse around “contemplating or having an abortion” to be “Abortion is a difficult solution to a problem”. This discourse encompassed being a responsible woman who took other's needs into account, including the potential child's. Most women found having an abortion difficult for reasons concerning the foetus, herself, and others. Women's accounts exemplified the complex personal and social contexts within which reproductive events, such as those in which the potential for abortion may play a part, must be understood.