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How the Right to Legal Abortion Changed the Arc of All Women’s Lives

By Katha Pollitt

I’ve never had an abortion. In this, I am like most American women. A frequently quoted statistic from a recent study by the Guttmacher Institute, which reports that one in four women will have an abortion before the age of forty-five, may strike you as high, but it means that a large majority of women never need to end a pregnancy. (Indeed, the abortion rate has been declining for decades, although it’s disputed how much of that decrease is due to better birth control, and wider use of it, and how much to restrictions that have made abortions much harder to get.) Now that the Supreme Court seems likely to overturn Roe v. Wade sometime in the next few years—Alabama has passed a near-total ban on abortion, and Ohio, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Missouri have passed “heartbeat” bills that, in effect, ban abortion later than six weeks of pregnancy, and any of these laws, or similar ones, could prove the catalyst—I wonder if women who have never needed to undergo the procedure, and perhaps believe that they never will, realize the many ways that the legal right to abortion has undergirded their lives.

Legal abortion means that the law recognizes a woman as a person. It says that she belongs to herself. Most obviously, it means that a woman has a safe recourse if she becomes pregnant as a result of being raped. (Believe it or not, in some states, the law allows a rapist to sue for custody or visitation rights.) It means that doctors no longer need to deny treatment to pregnant women with certain serious conditions—cancer, heart disease, kidney disease—until after they’ve given birth, by which time their health may have deteriorated irretrievably. And it means that non-Catholic hospitals can treat a woman promptly if she is having a miscarriage. (If she goes to a Catholic hospital, she may have to wait until the embryo or fetus dies. In one hospital, in Ireland, such a delay led to the death of a woman named Savita Halappanavar, who contracted septicemia. Her case spurred a movement to repeal that country’s constitutional amendment banning abortion.)

The legalization of abortion, though, has had broader and more subtle effects than limiting damage in these grave but relatively uncommon scenarios. The revolutionary advances made in the social status of American women during the nineteen-seventies are generally attributed to the availability of oral contraception, which came on the market in 1960. But, according to a 2017 study by the economist Caitlin Knowles Myers, “The Power of Abortion Policy: Re-Examining the Effects of Young Women’s Access to Reproductive Control,” published in the Journal of Political Economy , the effects of the Pill were offset by the fact that more teens and women were having sex, and so birth-control failure affected more people. Complicating the conventional wisdom that oral contraception made sex risk-free for all, the Pill was also not easy for many women to get. Restrictive laws in some states barred it for unmarried women and for women under the age of twenty-one. The Roe decision, in 1973, afforded thousands upon thousands of teen-agers a chance to avoid early marriage and motherhood. Myers writes, “Policies governing access to the pill had little if any effect on the average probabilities of marrying and giving birth at a young age. In contrast, policy environments in which abortion was legal and readily accessible by young women are estimated to have caused a 34 percent reduction in first births, a 19 percent reduction in first marriages, and a 63 percent reduction in ‘shotgun marriages’ prior to age 19.”

Access to legal abortion, whether as a backup to birth control or not, meant that women, like men, could have a sexual life without risking their future. A woman could plan her life without having to consider that it could be derailed by a single sperm. She could dream bigger dreams. Under the old rules, inculcated from girlhood, if a woman got pregnant at a young age, she married her boyfriend; and, expecting early marriage and kids, she wouldn’t have invested too heavily in her education in any case, and she would have chosen work that she could drop in and out of as family demands required.

In 1970, the average age of first-time American mothers was younger than twenty-two. Today, more women postpone marriage until they are ready for it. (Early marriages are notoriously unstable, so, if you’re glad that the divorce rate is down, you can, in part, thank Roe.) Women can also postpone childbearing until they are prepared for it, which takes some serious doing in a country that lacks paid parental leave and affordable childcare, and where discrimination against pregnant women and mothers is still widespread. For all the hand-wringing about lower birth rates, most women— eighty-six per cent of them —still become mothers. They just do it later, and have fewer children.

Most women don’t enter fields that require years of graduate-school education, but all women have benefitted from having larger numbers of women in those fields. It was female lawyers, for example, who brought cases that opened up good blue-collar jobs to women. Without more women obtaining law degrees, would men still be shaping all our legislation? Without the large numbers of women who have entered the medical professions, would psychiatrists still be telling women that they suffered from penis envy and were masochistic by nature? Would women still routinely undergo unnecessary hysterectomies? Without increased numbers of women in academia, and without the new field of women’s studies, would children still be taught, as I was, that, a hundred years ago this month, Woodrow Wilson “gave” women the vote? There has been a revolution in every field, and the women in those fields have led it.

It is frequently pointed out that the states passing abortion restrictions and bans are states where women’s status remains particularly low. Take Alabama. According to one study , by almost every index—pay, workforce participation, percentage of single mothers living in poverty, mortality due to conditions such as heart disease and stroke—the state scores among the worst for women. Children don’t fare much better: according to U.S. News rankings , Alabama is the worst state for education. It also has one of the nation’s highest rates of infant mortality (only half the counties have even one ob-gyn), and it has refused to expand Medicaid, either through the Affordable Care Act or on its own. Only four women sit in Alabama’s thirty-five-member State Senate, and none of them voted for the ban. Maybe that’s why an amendment to the bill proposed by State Senator Linda Coleman-Madison was voted down. It would have provided prenatal care and medical care for a woman and child in cases where the new law prevents the woman from obtaining an abortion. Interestingly, the law allows in-vitro fertilization, a procedure that often results in the discarding of fertilized eggs. As Clyde Chambliss, the bill’s chief sponsor in the state senate, put it, “The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant.” In other words, life only begins at conception if there’s a woman’s body to control.

Indifference to women and children isn’t an oversight. This is why calls for better sex education and wider access to birth control are non-starters, even though they have helped lower the rate of unwanted pregnancies, which is the cause of abortion. The point isn’t to prevent unwanted pregnancy. (States with strong anti-abortion laws have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the country; Alabama is among them.) The point is to roll back modernity for women.

So, if women who have never had an abortion, and don’t expect to, think that the new restrictions and bans won’t affect them, they are wrong. The new laws will fall most heavily on poor women, disproportionately on women of color, who have the highest abortion rates and will be hard-pressed to travel to distant clinics.

But without legal, accessible abortion, the assumptions that have shaped all women’s lives in the past few decades—including that they, not a torn condom or a missed pill or a rapist, will decide what happens to their bodies and their futures—will change. Women and their daughters will have a harder time, and there will be plenty of people who will say that they were foolish to think that it could be otherwise.

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By Jia Tolentino

By Isaac Chotiner

By Stephania Taladrid

The Most Important Study in the Abortion Debate

Researchers rigorously tested the persistent notion that abortion wounds the women who seek it.

The demographer Diana Greene Foster was in Orlando last month, preparing for the end of Roe v. Wade , when Politico published a leaked draft of a majority Supreme Court opinion striking down the landmark ruling. The opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, would revoke the constitutional right to abortion and thus give states the ability to ban the medical procedure.

Foster, the director of the Bixby Population Sciences Research Unit at UC San Francisco, was at a meeting of abortion providers, seeking their help recruiting people for a new study . And she was racing against time. She wanted to look, she told me, “at the last person served in, say, Nebraska, compared to the first person turned away in Nebraska.” Nearly two dozen red and purple states are expected to enact stringent limits or even bans on abortion as soon as the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v. Wade , as it is poised to do. Foster intends to study women with unwanted pregnancies just before and just after the right to an abortion vanishes.

Read: When a right becomes a privilege

When Alito’s draft surfaced, Foster told me, “I was struck by how little it considered the people who would be affected. The experience of someone who’s pregnant when they do not want to be and what happens to their life is absolutely not considered in that document.” Foster’s earlier work provides detailed insight into what does happen. The landmark Turnaway Study , which she led, is a crystal ball into our post- Roe future and, I would argue, the single most important piece of academic research in American life at this moment.

The legal and political debate about abortion in recent decades has tended to focus more on the rights and experience of embryos and fetuses than the people who gestate them. And some commentators—including ones seated on the Supreme Court—have speculated that termination is not just a cruel convenience, but one that harms women too . Foster and her colleagues rigorously tested that notion. Their research demonstrates that, in general, abortion does not wound women physically, psychologically, or financially. Carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term does.

In a 2007 decision , Gonzales v. Carhart , the Supreme Court upheld a ban on one specific, uncommon abortion procedure. In his majority opinion , Justice Anthony Kennedy ventured a guess about abortion’s effect on women’s lives: “While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained,” he wrote. “Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.”

Was that really true? Activists insisted so, but social scientists were not sure . Indeed, they were not sure about a lot of things when it came to the effect of the termination of a pregnancy on a person’s life. Many papers compared individuals who had an abortion with people who carried a pregnancy to term. The problem is that those are two different groups of people; to state the obvious, most people seeking an abortion are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy, while a majority of people carrying to term intended to get pregnant.

Foster and her co-authors figured out a way to isolate the impact of abortion itself. Nearly all states bar the procedure after a certain gestational age or after the point that a fetus is considered viable outside the womb . The researchers could compare people who were “turned away” by a provider because they were too far along with people who had an abortion at the same clinics. (They did not include people who ended a pregnancy for medical reasons.) The women who got an abortion would be similar, in terms of demographics and socioeconomics, to those who were turned away; what would separate the two groups was only that some women got to the clinic on time, and some didn’t.

In time, 30 abortion providers—ones that had the latest gestational limit of any clinic within 150 miles, meaning that a person could not easily access an abortion if they were turned away—agreed to work with the researchers. They recruited nearly 1,000 women to be interviewed every six months for five years. The findings were voluminous, resulting in 50 publications and counting. They were also clear. Kennedy’s speculation was wrong: Women, as a general point, do not regret having an abortion at all.

Researchers found, among other things, that women who were denied abortions were more likely to end up living in poverty. They had worse credit scores and, even years later, were more likely to not have enough money for the basics, such as food and gas. They were more likely to be unemployed. They were more likely to go through bankruptcy or eviction. “The two groups were economically the same when they sought an abortion,” Foster told me. “One became poorer.”

Read: The calamity of unwanted motherhood

In addition, those denied a termination were more likely to be with a partner who abused them. They were more likely to end up as a single parent. They had more trouble bonding with their infants, were less likely to agree with the statement “I feel happy when my child laughs or smiles,” and were more likely to say they “feel trapped as a mother.” They experienced more anxiety and had lower self-esteem, though those effects faded in time. They were half as likely to be in a “very good” romantic relationship at two years. They were less likely to have “aspirational” life plans.

Their bodies were different too. The ones denied an abortion were in worse health, experiencing more hypertension and chronic pain. None of the women who had an abortion died from it. This is unsurprising; other research shows that the procedure has extremely low complication rates , as well as no known negative health or fertility effects . Yet in the Turnaway sample, pregnancy ended up killing two of the women who wanted a termination and did not get one.

The Turnaway Study also showed that abortion is a choice that women often make in order to take care of their family. Most of the women seeking an abortion were already mothers. In the years after they terminated a pregnancy, their kids were better off; they were more likely to hit their developmental milestones and less likely to live in poverty. Moreover, many women who had an abortion went on to have more children. Those pregnancies were much more likely to be planned, and those kids had better outcomes too.

The interviews made clear that women, far from taking a casual view of abortion, took the decision seriously. Most reported using contraception when they got pregnant, and most of the people who sought an abortion after their state’s limit simply did not realize they were pregnant until it was too late. (Many women have irregular periods, do not experience morning sickness, and do not feel fetal movement until late in the second trimester.) The women gave nuanced, compelling reasons for wanting to end their pregnancies.

Afterward, nearly all said that termination had been the right decision. At five years, only 14 percent felt any sadness about having an abortion; two in three ended up having no or very few emotions about it at all. “Relief” was the most common feeling, and an abiding one.

From the May 2022 issue: The future of abortion in a post- Roe America

The policy impact of the Turnaway research has been significant, even though it was published during a period when states have been restricting abortion access. In 2018, the Iowa Supreme Court struck down a law requiring a 72-hour waiting period between when a person seeks and has an abortion, noting that “the vast majority of abortion patients do not regret the procedure, even years later, and instead feel relief and acceptance”—a Turnaway finding. That same finding was cited by members of Chile’s constitutional court  as they allowed for the decriminalization of abortion in certain circumstances.

Yet the research has not swayed many people who advocate for abortion bans, believing that life begins at conception and that the law must prioritize the needs of the fetus. Other activists have argued that Turnaway is methodologically flawed; some women approached in the clinic waiting room declined to participate, and not all participating women completed all interviews . “The women who anticipate and experience the most negative reactions to abortion are the least likely to want to participate in interviews,” the activist David Reardon argued in a 2018 article in a Catholic Medical Association journal.

Still, four dozen papers analyzing the Turnaway Study’s findings have been published in peer-reviewed journals; the research is “the gold standard,” Emily M. Johnston, an Urban Institute health-policy expert who wasn’t involved with the project, told me. In the trajectories of women who received an abortion and those who were denied one, “we can understand the impact of abortion on women’s lives,” Foster told me. “They don’t have to represent all women seeking abortion for the findings to be valid.” And her work has been buttressed by other surveys, showing that women fear the repercussions of unplanned pregnancies for good reason and do not tend to regret having a termination. “Among the women we spoke with, they did not regret either choice,” whether that was having an abortion or carrying to term, Johnston told me. “These women were thinking about their desires for themselves, but also were thinking very thoughtfully about what kind of life they could provide for a child.”

The Turnaway study , for Foster, underscored that nobody needs the government to decide whether they need an abortion. If and when America’s highest court overturns Roe , though, an estimated 34 million women of reproductive age will lose some or all access to the procedure in the state where they live. Some people will travel to an out-of-state clinic to terminate a pregnancy; some will get pills by mail to manage their abortions at home; some will “try and do things that are less safe,” as Foster put it. Many will carry to term: The Guttmacher Institute has estimated that there will be roughly 100,000 fewer legal abortions per year post- Roe . “The question now is who is able to circumvent the law, what that costs, and who suffers from these bans,” Foster told me. “The burden of this will be disproportionately put on people who are least able to support a pregnancy and to support a child.”

Ellen Gruber Garvey: I helped women get abortions in pre- Roe America

Foster said that there is a lot we still do not know about how the end of Roe might alter the course of people’s lives—the topic of her new research. “In the Turnaway Study, people were too late to get an abortion, but they didn’t have to feel like the police were going to knock on their door,” she told me. “Now, if you’re able to find an abortion somewhere and you have a complication, do you get health care? Do you seek health care out if you’re having a miscarriage, or are you too scared? If you’re going to travel across state lines, can you tell your mother or your boss what you’re doing?”

In addition, she said that she was uncertain about the role that abortion funds —local, on-the-ground organizations that help people find, travel to, and pay for terminations—might play. “We really don’t know who is calling these hotlines,” she said. “When people call, what support do they need? What is enough, and who falls through the cracks?” She added that many people are unaware that such services exist, and might have trouble accessing them.

People are resourceful when seeking a termination and resilient when denied an abortion, Foster told me. But looking into the post- Roe future, she predicted, “There’s going to be some widespread and scary consequences just from the fact that we’ve made this common health-care practice against the law.” Foster, to her dismay, is about to have a lot more research to do.

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• Issues and Controversies: Should Women in the United States Have Access to Abortion? June 2022 article (written after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade) that explores both sides of the abortion debate.
• Access World News: Abortion The most recent news and opinion on abortion from US newspapers.

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• State-by-State Abortion Laws Updated regularly by the Guttmacher Institute
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PHI 240: Ethics of Fetal Development & Abortion (Daniels)

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Donald marquis, judith jarvis thomson, mary anne warren, essay:  the value of choice and the choice to value: expanding the discussion about fetal life within prochoice advocacy.

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How to Write Abortion Research Paper Homework?

Table of Contents

Looking for easy tips on how to write a research paper on abortion? We’ve got you covered!

Abortion is probably the most controversial subject in modern society. It includes a number of complex questions concerning ethical, moral, legal, medical, philosophical, and religious issues related to the deliberate ending of pregnancy before normal childbirth.

Public opinions are polarized; they have strong feelings for or against this subject. That’s why writing a good abortion research paper with work cited requires in-depth research of existing literature. Students have to find a decent amount of relevant arguments (statistics, facts) about positive and negative aspects of the problem and create a convincing piece.

Abortion research paper specifics

Abortion research paper is a piece of academic writing based on original research performed by a writer. The author’s task is to analyze and interpret research findings on a particular topic.

Although research paper assignments may vary widely, there are two common types – analytical and argumentative.

• In argumentative essay students have to establish their position in a thesis statement and convince their audience to adopt this point of view.
• In analytical essay students state a research question, take a neutral stance on a topic, presenting information in a form of well-supported critical analysis without persuading the audience to adopt any particular point of view.

Thorough writing a college research paper on the subject is critical – it can help students develop their own opinions and build a strong argument.

Research paper on abortion: writing hints & tips

Abortion is among political and moral issues on which Americans are genuinely split. Their opinions on this controversial issue remain unchanged since 1995. There are two primary moral and legal questions related to the abortion debate, which divides public opinion for generations:

• Are abortions morally wrong?
• Should they be legal or banned?

Although these questions seem straightforward, they are more complex than students think. There are two separate camps. People who favor the “pro-choice” stance support the right of women to choose whether she carries a pregnancy to term or not. They think that abortions are acceptable.

People who take the strict religious “pro-life” stance think that abortions are always wrong because the fetus has rights and we should treat it the same way as any other human being.

If you have to write an argumentative research paper, you must choose either “pro-life” or “pro-choice” stance and develop a convincing argument to persuade readers.

If your research paper is analytical, you should examine both sides of the issue, evaluate the most important arguments, provide a balanced overview of both approaches, analyzing their weak and strong points.

Religion plays a great role in the debate but there are a lot of non-religious issues. Here are the most important ethical and legal issues, involving the rights of women and the rights of a fetus.

• Is fetus a human being and does it have the basic legal right to live?
• Does life begin at conception?
• Should we consider the fetus a separate being or is it a part of its mother?
• Does the fetus’ right to life have a priority over the woman’s right to control her body?
• Under what circumstances is it acceptable to terminate the fetus’ life?
• Can the removing of a fetus be considered as a murder?
• Is it better to abort an unwanted child or allow it to be neglected by parents?
• Can adoption be alternative to termination of pregnancy?
• Is it possible to find a balance between the rights of a mother and those of a fetus?

A lot of arguments in favor of this procedure are based on respect for women’s reproductive rights.

“Pro-choice” camp argues that a woman is a person with her own rights and not a fetus’ carrier.

They say that governmental or religious authorities shouldn’t limit a woman’s right to control her own body. Besides, the fetus can’t be regarded as a separate entity because it can’t exist outside a woman’s womb.

Opponents of this procedure speak about respect for all forms of life, fetus’ right to life, and argue that it is actually the kill of an innocent human being.

Best abortion research paper topics

The first step in writing a research paper is selecting a good manageable topic that interests you and defining a research question or a thesis statement.

Wondering where to find powerful abortion research paper topics? Here is a short list of interesting ideas. Feel free to pick any of them for creating your own writings. You may also use them as a source of inspiration and further research of a specific issue.

• Impact of legalizing abortions on the birth rate.
• How terminations of pregnancies are regulated around the world.
• How termination of pregnancy is considered within moral terms.
• Analyze regional differences in Americans’ attitude to termination of pregnancy.
• Examine the generation gap in abortion support.
• Feminist beliefs and abortion rights supporters.
• What is the future of abortion politics?
• Give an overview of the legislation on the termination of pregnancies around the world.
• The medical complications of pregnancy termination.
• Discuss the abortion debate and human rights.
• How having an abortion affects a woman’s life.
• Will the abortion debate ever end?
• How can we reduce the demand for termination of pregnancy?
• Moral aspects of pregnancy termination.
• Legal aspects of the abortion conflict.
• Should termination of pregnancy be treated as a health issue?
• Electoral politics and termination of pregnancy.
• Is the termination of pregnancy a human issue or a gender issue?
• Philosophical aspects of the abortion debate.
• Liberal views on the termination of pregnancy.
• Abortion demographics: race, poverty, and choice.
• Why does the public support for legal termination of pregnancy remains high?
• Should men be allowed to discuss the termination of pregnancy?
• Is the abortion a “women’s only” issue?
• Woman’s mental health after abortion.

How to write an abortion research paper outline?

Now let’s discuss how to write an abortion research paper outline. First, you have to write a thesis statement that summarizes the main point of your paper and outlines supporting points. The thesis will help you organize your structure and ensure that you stay focused while working on your project. Make a thesis statement strong, specific, and arguable.

After defining the thesis statement, you need to brainstorm ideas that are supporting the thesis in the best way. When it comes to the level of detail in an outline, you should take into account the length of a college project. You should choose the most suitable subtopics and arrange them logically. Decide which order is the most effective in arguing your thesis. Your paper should include at least 3 parts: an introduction, main body, and conclusion.

Have a look at simple abortion research paper outline example .

Introduction

• Hook sentence
• Thesis statement
• Transition to Main Body
• History of abortion
• Abortion demographics in countries where it is legal
• Impact of legal termination of pregnancy on women’s life and health
• Negative consequences of illegal termination of pregnancy
• What measures should be taken to reduce the number of abortions?
• Transition to Conclusion
• Unexpected twist or a final argument
• Food for thought

Academic writing is very challenging, especially if it involves complex controversial topics . Writing an abortion research paper is a time-consuming and arduous task, which involves a lot of researching, reading, writing, revising, rewriting, editing, and proofreading. Make sure you are ready to create several drafts and then improve the content and style to make your paper perfect.

We hope that our quick tips will help you get started. But if you are new to academic writing, a good idea is to find well-written abortion research paper examples. Read and analyze them to have a better idea about proper paper structure, academic writing style, references, and different approaches to organizing thoughts.

How about we take care of your abortion research paper, while you enjoy your free time? Several clicks and we’re on!

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Experiences of abortion: A narrative review of qualitative studies

Mabel ls lie.

1 Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, William Leech Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, UK

Stephen C Robson

2 School of Surgical and Reproductive Sciences, Newcastle University, The Medical School, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, UK

3 Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, 21 Claremont Place, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4AA, UK

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Although abortion or termination of pregnancy (TOP) has become an increasingly normalized component of women's health care over the past forty years, insufficient attention has been paid to women's experiences of surgical or medical methods of TOP.

To undertake a narrative review of qualitative studies of women's experiences of TOP and their perspectives on surgical or medical methods.

Keyword searches of Medline, CINAHL, ISI, and IBSS databases. Manual searches of other relevant journals and reference lists of primary articles.

Qualitative studies (n = 18) on women's experiences of abortion were identified. Analysis of the results of studies reviewed revealed three main themes: experiential factors that promote or inhibit the choice to seek TOP; experiences of TOP; and experiential aspects of the environment in which TOP takes place.

Women's choices about TOP are mainly pragmatic ones that are related to negotiating finite personal and family and emotional resources. Women who are well informed and supported in their choices experience good psychosocial outcomes from TOP. Home TOP using mifepristone appears attractive to women who are concerned about professionals' negative attitudes and lack of privacy in formal healthcare settings but also leads to concerns about management and safety.

Although abortion or termination of pregnancy (TOP) by clinical means is politically contentious in some countries (notably the US), in most developed countries it has become a normalized [ 1 ] component of women's health care [ 2 ] over the past forty years. For most of this period, TOP was a surgical procedure but since the mid-1990s, pharmaceutical developments (i.e. RU-486 also known as mifepristone, and methotrexate [ 3 ]), have made medical TOP possible. Clinical trials have established that medical TOP provides a clinical and cost effective alternative to vacuum aspiration for the early termination of pregnancy [ 4 - 8 ]. While a Cochrane systematic review highlighted inadequate evidence [ 9 ], a more recent systematic review concluded that the incidence of side effects in medical abortion was low [ 10 ]. Even so, mifepristone has only been approved in the US since September 2000, whereas the UK and Sweden have had more than a decade of experience of its use and it is approved for use in 14 European countries [ 11 ].

The emphasis on establishing clinical and cost effectiveness of medical versus surgical TOP means that less attention has been paid to women's experiences of the two methods. This paper goes some way towards filling that gap by providing a narrative review of qualitative studies of women's experiences of TOP and their perspectives on surgical or medical methods. Given the importance of this topic to policy and clinical practice around reproductive health, this is a surprisingly small body of literature, but it is highly heterogeneous and contextually specific.

An initial scoping exercise established that the qualitative research literature was too heterogeneous to permit a systematic review of qualitative studies along the lines proposed by Dixon-Woods [ 12 ], or a theoretical qualitative meta-synthesis using the methods proposed by Sandelowski [ 13 ]. For this reason, a narrative review [ 14 ] was undertaken.

The review focused on the period 1998–2007 because it was during this period that medical TOP has become established in practice. The primary focus of the review is therefore on women's experiences of TOP, and this meant that other studies (for example qualitative studies of attitudes and moral considerations) were excluded. Studies included in the review were identified by keyword searches of Medline, Psychinfo, CINAHL, ISI, and IBSS databases. Keywords searched included 'abortion', 'terminat*, pregnan*', 'unplanned pregnancy', in combination with 'qualitative study', semi-structured, ethnograph* experiences', of which 'abortion experiences' yielded the most relevant material. Manual searches of other relevant journals ( Reproductive Health Matters ; Health Care for Women International ; Contraception ) and reference lists of primary articles found from initial searches were also conducted. These searches revealed four comparative qualitative studies of surgical versus medical TOP [ 15 - 18 ] of which three were conducted in the US and one in Latin America. A further 14 qualitative studies of women's experiences of TOP using either method were identified [ 19 - 32 ]. This is an extraordinarily small body of peer-reviewed research papers given the importance and contentiousness of the topic.

While many authors have observed that qualitative studies have important strengths in health policy and practice research [ 33 , 34 ] the studies included in this paper also have limitations that should be acknowledged. The most important of these are their small size and limited scope. Because this is not a systematic review and few articles were found, evaluations of methodological quality were not used to exclude papers from the study. However, it was accepted that non-probability sampling was employed and for ethical reasons, participants were self-selected. Even so, many studies provided insufficient socio-demographic information about their research participants and only nine acknowledged study limitations and recruitment biases [ 17 , 19 , 23 - 28 , 31 ]. In common with other narrative reviews of qualitative studies, this means that we do not seek to assess the ways that participant selection may have influenced results.

Discussion of ethnicity was virtually absent. Only one study [ 23 ], included participants who did not speak the dominant language in the country in which it was conducted, so that the views of migrant minority ethnic women were often not taken into account. While one study [ 28 ] recruited a significant proportion (two thirds) from minority ethnic communities, no attempt was made to explain their results on the basis of ethnicity.

Most studies recruited at clinical sites with the help of health professionals, others by advertising in public spaces (e.g. university, women's magazine) and snowballing [ 21 , 31 , 32 ] and the majority of studies interviewed single women from their late teens to their twenties. Only two studies interviewed participants prior to TOP [ 20 , 30 ]; two were longitudinal [ 24 , 35 ]; and two investigated the longer term effects of abortion [ 31 , 32 ]. Apart from two ethnographies [ 22 , 24 ] all studies collected data through semi-structured or in-depth interviews.

The review identified two groups of qualitative studies on TOP.

(i) Studies that focused on experiences of medical TOP, (n = 4, summarised in table ​ table1) 1 ) mainly in comparison with experiences of surgical TOP. Three of these studies were conducted in the US. These included a study embedded in the 1994–95 pre-legalisation clinical trials of mifepristone [ 15 ], and two studies of the home administration of mifepristone within the Abortion Rights Mobilisation Trials [ 16 , 17 ]. A further study on Latin American women's perspectives on medical TOP was not connected with assessing mifepristone [ 18 ].

Summary of study characteristics: Medical compared with Surgical TOP

(ii) Studies that explored general experiences of TOP (n = 14, summarised in table ​ table2). 2 ). These focused on the process of arranging TOP [ 19 , 28 ], and the experience of undergoing it [ 21 , 22 , 26 , 30 ]. Two studies highlighted the influence of cultural and contextual features [ 23 , 24 ], with one looking more specifically at a sample of women involved in a clinical trial [ 25 ]. Other studies investigated the role of the male partner in TOP [ 35 , 36 ]; experiences of repeated TOP [ 20 ]; and recollections of abortion experiences years after undergoing the procedure [ 31 , 32 ]. Two studies specifically explored teenage TOP [ 24 , 29 ] and two the relationship between TOP and contraceptive service provision [ 29 , 37 ].

Summary of study characteristics: general experiences of TOP

Analysis of the results of studies included in this paper revealed three main themes: experiential factors that promote or inhibit the choice to seek TOP; experiences of TOP; and experiential aspects of the environment in which TOP takes place.

The watchword of campaigners for abortion services has been that it is the woman's right to freely choose between abortion and pregnancy [ 38 ]. Studies reviewed for this paper suggest that although moral values are important [ 15 , 21 , 26 , 27 ], the choice to seek TOP is a pragmatic one that reflects the impact of pregnancy and childbearing on personal and household circumstances [ 17 , 18 , 21 , 26 , 27 , 29 ]. A number of studies described the role male partners played in women's decision of whether to undergo the procedure [ 16 , 20 - 22 , 24 , 30 ]. Lone mothers are often economically disadvantaged, but in Sweden, where universal childcare provision makes lone parenthood economically viable, one study showed that participants (n = 5) preferred not to bring up children on their own [ 26 ]. Partnered or married women were also concerned about planning their families well [ 27 ], taking into consideration their partners' attitudes and the needs of their children [ 18 ] and their quality of life [ 17 ]. However, a U.S. study reported that women were more likely to confide in their female friends about their pregnancy than family members or partners [ 25 ]. Women's childhood experiences such as growing up in a broken home could also affect women's decisions [ 26 ]. Studies conducted with women under the age of 21 revealed that other factors such as immaturity, parental attitudes, and education and employment prospects were more important than moral considerations [ 24 , 29 , 30 ]

Whatever women's circumstances, studies in this review suggest that the decision to seek TOP usually precedes any encounter with heath care professionals [ 17 , 28 , 29 ]. However, such decisions are moderated by the value systems and social norms of the society or community in question [ 15 , 19 , 22 - 24 , 29 ]. Feelings of ambivalence in the decision-making process were highlighted in a Swedish study [ 26 ], where women felt positive towards the right to abortion, but negative about their own decision to abort. It is argued that TOP allows women to return to 'normality' psychologically, physiologically and socially, and women appreciated being treated in a non-stigmatised way [ 19 ]. However, a study conducted in the UK found that the majority of teenage mothers who were interviewed did not associate motherhood with lack or loss of opportunity [ 29 ].

The range of services available also affects the choices of women. However, papers identified for review provided little about how the choice of TOP provider is framed, or even what choices are available. One study of young women in the UK [ 29 ] found that they preferred family planning services rather than general practitioners for their first point of contact and referral, for reasons of greater anonymity and specialised treatment. Anonymity and confidentiality are key issues in all settings where TOP is stigmatised [ 21 - 24 ]. For this reason, Israeli women tended to avoid publicly subsidised formal procedures opting instead for private abortion providers [ 23 ].

In the UK, expectations of better personal treatment and confidentiality were also reasons why some women chose private or voluntary sector clinics over National Health Service (NHS) clinics, although cost is an issue [ 19 ]. Those who had used independent providers reported more positive experiences than those who had used the NHS [ 29 ]. Further evidence of this comes from another British study [ 28 ], where participants (n = 21) reported difficulties in getting an urgent appointment with their family doctor, problems with the NHS telephone booking system and being asked by doctors to further consider their decision, thus delaying the process.

Finally, the choice of method is dependent not only on service availability but on medico-legal considerations such as the gestational age. Once again, data on this topic are very limited. Pragmatic reasons such as effectiveness and the side effects were found to over-ride women's moral and political considerations in one US study [ 17 ]. Previous experiences of surgical abortion may have led women to seek medical rather than surgical TOP in two other US studies [ 16 , 17 ]. The experiences of other family members or friends who had undergone abortion can also be influential [ 17 , 30 ].

2. Experiences

Studies that concentrated on women's experiences of the TOP procedure prefaced their findings with an account of the specific medical regimens in place at the time of the study. The US studies focused on women's perceptions of medical abortion as a new procedure, and often compared this with surgical TOP. In this context, women identified medical abortion as a way to avoid surgery, and anaesthesia and that permitted them privacy, autonomy and a greater sense of control [ 15 , 17 - 19 ]. Simonds et al [ 15 ], in particular, explored the idea of abortion being 'natural' describing this as 'not-really-abortion, but rather as a late period that finally comes' (p1316). As such, medical TOP was associated with reduced feelings of guilt for some participants in her study. This 'naturalness' (a subjective association with a miscarriage or menstruation without the insertion of instruments) seems to outweigh the pain and prolonged nature of the procedure, including the sight of fetus. Other women focused on the pain as a necessary part of the process [ 16 ].

Complex emotional experiences appear to be integral to TOP. These include regret and guilt [ 17 , 22 ], distress and anxiety [ 17 , 22 , 27 ] and grief, loss, emptiness and suffering [ 21 ]. These experiences are related to gestational age, for example, in one study a medical termination before any symptoms of pregnancy were perceived was described as involving a 'loss' whereas a surgical termination was described as a 'death' [ 16 ]. Anxiety about sterility and death is also experienced by some women [ 16 , 18 , 26 ]. Women were also found to associate an abortion with taking responsibility [ 27 ] for the consequences of what they considered was an irresponsible act [ 19 ], especially in medical TOP where women were conscious during the procedure [ 15 ]. Another study [ 16 ] described the experience of a medical abortion as a chance to grieve, and the pain experienced was described by the authors as 'cathartic', one woman describing this as 'a personal investigation into your own pain' (p171).

Such perceptions are mediated by the moral context within which the women are located. In Indonesia, for example, women's perception of the fetus is influenced by the Islamic view that ensoulment takes place at 120 days of pregnancy [ 22 ]. In the US, Pro-Life argument against TOP is rich with images of a destructive, act, often explicitly called murder , leading some women to think that they 'killed a baby', but also realising 'it wasn't really a child' [ 17 ]. In a study by Fielding and Schaff [ 25 ], reservations about abortion in the second trimester onwards were unanimous except in relation to abnormalities. The language used to describe the fetus reflects the closeness or distance that women feel towards the life growing in their bodies and impacts on women's post-abortion emotional reactions [ 25 , 30 , 32 ]. In one trial, women were encouraged to look at the expelled fetus at home, but the authors say that 'dramatic' responses were rare [ 15 ]. Some women in this study described relief in not seeing a distinguishable human being when the fetus was expelled.

Feminist researchers provide insights into the interaction of TOP with notions of reproductive independence. A study [ 27 ] on the long term emotional effects of abortion found that more than half of the women who had reported both positive and painful feelings continued to report these feelings after 12 months. However, respondents reported they coped well, experiencing strengthened self-esteem, personal growth and maturity over the year. A study [ 30 ] of young Swedish women (n = 10) found that they encountered an understanding of themselves, their bodies, their fertility, and the meaning of adult motherhood. A study [ 24 ] of African-American adolescents (n = 12), aged between 15–18, highlighted their poor knowledge of reproductive processes and health and suggested that elective TOP was a 'positive, growth-enhancing experience' (p432), with participants being empowered by their experience of decision-making. However, Simonds et al [ 15 ] showed that in a clinical trial, medical abortion may have been perceived no less invasive as surgical abortion because of repeated insertions of pessaries, pelvic examinations, and ultrasound examinations, to ensure the success of the procedure.

Other studies highlight the isolation of women undergoing TOP and their concerns to conceal it from others [ 21 , 26 ]. In studies of the home use of misoprostol [ 17 , 18 ], there are accounts of women who undergo the abortion alone, or in secret with others such as family members around but unaware of the situation. In contrast, women in another clinical trial [ 16 ] described the active participation of partners or friends who helped to minimise their discomfort by rubbing their backs, bringing them tea, or monitoring their blood loss. Women with knowledge of how TOP works, and who have support from both their clinic and their partner seem more likely to experience a better outcome [ 18 ]. Women's cultural affiliations and beliefs also have a bearing on their emotional experiences [ 18 , 22 , 27 ]. For example, Israeli women tended to interpret abortion as a personal failure whereas Russian immigrants looked upon it as bad luck or a mistake [ 23 ]. In relation to the emotional impact of the abortion experience, a woman's preparedness and post-abortion support [ 32 ] as well as the emotional work required from nurses in family planning and abortion clinics [ 26 ] were important considerations.

3. Environment

The role of service providers is examined in most of the studies and British studies have focused especially on health services access and quality [ 19 , 28 , 29 ]. The process of seeking abortion in the UK is sometimes confusing because of inadequate information and extended because of delays in referrals. In three US studies [ 15 - 17 ] participants compared positive experiences of treatment by professionals providing medical TOP in clinical trials with professionals' negative attitudes and impersonal clinic settings in ordinary services. A Canadian study [ 21 ] identified a mismatch between women's normative expectations that health care providers should provide them with options and access to whatever medical services they might need, and what they perceived to be an unsympathetic reception from medical staff. The effect of such attitudes is assumed to discourage women from seeking abortion, but there is no systematic evidence to support this assumption. In an Israeli study, Russian immigrants objected to state interference into their choice to abort, but were impressed with the quality of publicly provided abortion services and sympathetic staff [ 23 ].

Women's experiences of patient care during an abortion are also affected by the method of termination. In US trials on medical TOP, women relied on health professionals to assure them about the safety of the new procedure and to determine if the termination had been successful [ 17 ]. Women needed more counselling from clinical staff about the procedure of medical termination [ 17 ]. This may reflect the need to assess if they were appropriate candidates for the procedure [ 15 ]. Women also had to be assured of ready access to medical information and help from clinical staff. In reports [ 15 ] of experiences with surgical TOP, treatment by medical staff figured more prominently than the actual physical experience of abortion.

In some contexts, the attitudes of health providers to abortion were relative to the marital status of the women [ 22 ]. In Indonesia for example, medical staff endorse abortions as a form of birth control for married women, but held disapproving attitudes towards pre-marital sex which impact on young women's feelings of guilt and shame. A study on teenage mothers in the UK [ 29 ] also reported doctors' disapproval. In the UK, clinical attitudes appear to be more negative towards the termination of pregnancies after the first trimester and some NHS clinics do not offer services for late abortions.

Studies that included primary care primary care professionals suggested that these were perceived as less sympathetic and supportive than professionals working in abortion services. The latter were perceived to be more caring and less judgemental [ 19 , 28 ]. This distinction was also found in one of the U.S. studies, although clinical trial staff were also perceived as more conscientious than women's usual health care providers.

Counselling is referred to in different ways in the studies but most particularly as counselling prior to the TOP to discuss the different methods, their benefits, what to expect, compliance and follow-up [ 17 ] and in relation to decision-making [ 28 ]. Other studies take a nursing perspective referring to the emotional work of nurses [ 26 ] and the importance of providing opportunities for women to express their suffering [ 27 ]. The importance of counselling is highlighted particularly where women had not told family or friends about their pregnancy [ 28 ]. However, unnecessary or superficial counselling has also been questioned [ 28 , 29 ]. In some parts of the non-Western world where women are more vulnerable, women's decision-making regarding abortion was influenced by the recommendations of the abortion provider and cost implications [ 18 , 22 , 23 ]. In most studies, information provision and knowledge were critical factors. An American study recommended that each patient be given a choice in the amount of information she receives, and information packs could be provided accordingly [ 17 ]. In relation to contraception however, knowledge needs to be integrated into practice for effective family planning [ 20 ]. The physical setting e.g. waiting rooms, and cold, unfamiliar wards was also referred to in some studies [ 19 , 26 ]. While some women appreciated the presence of other women in alleviating the loneliness of the experience, others were concerned about privacy and the risk of meeting someone they knew in the waiting room [ 21 ].

Some studies also investigated women's experiences of medical TOP at home rather than at a clinical facility [ 16 - 18 , 22 ]. In the US, Fielding [ 17 ] and Elul [ 16 ] identified familiar surroundings, privacy and not having to encounter strangers, as adding to women's appreciation of home TOP. However, there are situations in which home abortions are problematic, for example where the abortion needs to be kept hidden from the rest of the household because of shame [ 18 , 22 ]. This is particularly complicated where women are victims of domestic or sexual violence. Women also fear the risks of having an abortion at home where health professionals are not readily available to them.

Qualitative studies published on TOP within the time frame of this review have been limited in scope and detail. In this article, we have identified two main groups of studies; those that specifically address the issue of medical abortion, and those that explore the experiences of TOP more generally. Studies reviewed in this paper were influenced by a range of contextual factors such as political, ethical, social and legislative environments as well as health, economic and welfare systems. Research from the US, UK and Sweden dominated the literature, but these three countries have very different patterns of service provision. This review leads to four main conclusions.

(i) Women's choices about whether, where, and how, TOP should be undertaken are mainly pragmatic ones that are related to negotiating finite household and psychosocial resources.

(ii) Rapid access to services characterised by supportive non-judgemental staff who delegate medical control over the process to women appear to characterise positive responses to medical TOP.

(iii) Home TOP using mifepristone appears attractive to women who are concerned about professionals' negative attitudes and lack of privacy in formal healthcare settings but also leads to concerns about management and safety.

(iv) Women who are well informed and supported in their choices experience good psychosocial outcomes from TOP.

These are broad conclusions derived from a very limited corpus of qualitative research. A recent review [ 39 ] of psychological studies of TOP identified discrepancies between societal and individual experiences, due to "theoretical and methodological deficiencies plaguing this area of study, with the available data often missing the complexity and depth of individuals' inner experiences" [37:238]. This is also true of many of the qualitative studies reviewed in this paper, suggesting that major opportunities to inform current policy and practice debates – utilizing the strengths of qualitative methods – have been missed.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors' contributions

CRM conducted an initial literature scoping exercise. MLSL conducted the literature searches, collected and collated articles, and drafted this paper. SCR and CRM commented in detail on drafts and contributed to the final version of the manuscript.

Pre-publication history

The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6963/8/150/prepub

Acknowledgements

MLSL's contribution to this paper was supported by funding from the NIHR HTA R&D Programme. (Grant 03/11/02: ISRCTN07823656 A randomised preference trial of medical versus surgical termination of pregnancy less then 14 weeks' gestation). CRM's contribution to this paper was partly supported by an ESRC personal research fellowship (RES 000270084). Funding agreements with these agencies ensured the authors' independence in designing the study, interpreting the data, writing, and publishing the report. This paper does not represent the views of the NIHR or ESRC.

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Are you about to write a persuasive essay on abortion but wondering how to begin?

Writing an effective persuasive essay on the topic of abortion can be a difficult task for many students. 

It is important to understand both sides of the issue and form an argument based on facts and logical reasoning. This requires research and understanding, which takes time and effort.

In this blog, we will provide you with some easy steps to craft a persuasive essay about abortion that is compelling and convincing. Moreover, we have included some example essays and interesting facts to read and get inspired by. 

So let's start!

• 1. How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?
• 2. Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples
• 3. Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion
• 4. Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics
• 5. Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

How To Write a Persuasive Essay About Abortion?

Abortion is a controversial topic, with people having differing points of view and opinions on the matter. There are those who oppose abortion, while some people endorse pro-choice arguments. 

It is also an emotionally charged subject, so you need to be extra careful when crafting your persuasive essay .

Before you start writing your persuasive essay, you need to understand the following steps.

Step 1: Choose Your Position

The first step to writing a persuasive essay on abortion is to decide your position. Do you support the practice or are you against it? You need to make sure that you have a clear opinion before you begin writing. 

Once you have decided, research and find evidence that supports your position. This will help strengthen your argument. 

Check out the video below to get more insights into this topic:

Step 2: Choose Your Audience

The next step is to decide who your audience will be. Will you write for pro-life or pro-choice individuals? Or both? 

Knowing who you are writing for will guide your writing and help you include the most relevant facts and information.

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Step 3: Define Your Argument

Now that you have chosen your position and audience, it is time to craft your argument. 

Start by defining what you believe and why, making sure to use evidence to support your claims. You also need to consider the opposing arguments and come up with counter arguments. This helps make your essay more balanced and convincing.

Step 4: Format Your Essay

Once you have the argument ready, it is time to craft your persuasive essay. Follow a standard format for the essay, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. 

Make sure that each paragraph is organized and flows smoothly. Use clear and concise language, getting straight to the point.

Step 5: Proofread and Edit

The last step in writing your persuasive essay is to make sure that you proofread and edit it carefully. Look for spelling, grammar, punctuation, or factual errors and correct them. This will help make your essay more professional and convincing.

These are the steps you need to follow when writing a persuasive essay on abortion. It is a good idea to read some examples before you start so you can know how they should be written.

Continue reading to find helpful examples.

Persuasive Essay About Abortion Examples

To help you get started, here are some example persuasive essays on abortion that may be useful for your own paper.

Short Persuasive Essay About Abortion

Persuasive Essay About No To Abortion

What Is Abortion? - Essay Example

Persuasive Speech on Abortion

Legal Abortion Persuasive Essay

Persuasive Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Persuasive Essay about legalizing abortion

You can also read m ore persuasive essay examples to imp rove your persuasive skills.

Examples of Argumentative Essay About Abortion

An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents both sides of an argument. These essays rely heavily on logic and evidence.

Here are some examples of argumentative essay with introduction, body and conclusion that you can use as a reference in writing your own argumentative essay. 

Abortion Persuasive Essay Introduction

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Conclusion

Argumentative Essay About Abortion Pdf

Argumentative Essay About Abortion in the Philippines

Argumentative Essay About Abortion - Introduction

Abortion Persuasive Essay Topics

If you are looking for some topics to write your persuasive essay on abortion, here are some examples:

• Should abortion be legal in the United States?
• Is it ethical to perform abortions, considering its pros and cons?
• What should be done to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortions?
• Is there a connection between abortion and psychological trauma?
• What are the ethical implications of abortion on demand?
• How has the debate over abortion changed over time?
• Should there be legal restrictions on late-term abortions?
• Does gender play a role in how people view abortion rights?
• Is it possible to reduce poverty and unwanted pregnancies through better sex education?
• How is the anti-abortion point of view affected by religious beliefs and values? 

These are just some of the potential topics that you can use for your persuasive essay on abortion. Think carefully about the topic you want to write about and make sure it is something that interests you. 

Check out m ore persuasive essay topics that will help you explore other things that you can write about!

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Facts About Abortion You Need to Know

Here are some facts about abortion that will help you formulate better arguments.

• According to the Guttmacher Institute , 1 in 4 pregnancies end in abortion.
• The majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester.
• Abortion is one of the safest medical procedures, with less than a 0.5% risk of major complications.
• In the United States, 14 states have laws that restrict or ban most forms of abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
• Seven out of 198 nations allow elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
• In places where abortion is illegal, more women die during childbirth and due to complications resulting from pregnancy.
• A majority of pregnant women who opt for abortions do so for financial and social reasons.
• According to estimates, 56 million abortions occur annually.

In conclusion, these are some of the examples, steps, and topics that you can use to write a persuasive essay. Make sure to do your research thoroughly and back up your arguments with evidence. This will make your essay more professional and convincing. 

Need the services of a professional essay writing service ? We've got your back!

MyPerfectWords.com is a persuasive essay writing service that provides help to students in the form of professionally written essays. Our persuasive essay writer can craft quality persuasive essays on any topic, including abortion. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What should i talk about in an essay about abortion.

When writing an essay about abortion, it is important to cover all the aspects of the subject. This includes discussing both sides of the argument, providing facts and evidence to support your claims, and exploring potential solutions.

What is a good argument for abortion?

A good argument for abortion could be that it is a woman’s choice to choose whether or not to have an abortion. It is also important to consider the potential risks of carrying a pregnancy to term.

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Proper citation is an essential aspect of scholarship. Citing properly allows your reader or audience to locate the materials you have used. Most importantly, citations give credit to the authors of quoted or consulted information.

For detailed instructions on how to cite within the text of your paper, please consult a style manual listed below. 

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How Women at One Arizona Clinic Are Grappling With the Abortion Ruling

Inside Acacia Women’s Center, patients described a mix of fear, anger and anxiety after the State Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate a law that bans nearly all abortions.

For patients at Acacia Women’s Center in Phoenix, the Arizona Supreme Court’s abortion ruling felt deeply personal. Credit...

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By Jack Healy

Photographs by Caitlin O’Hara

Jack Healy spent two days at an abortion clinic in Phoenix and spoke with more than a dozen people, including patients, medical staff and protesters.

• April 14, 2024

Leah found out she was five weeks pregnant on the same day that the Arizona Supreme Court upheld an 1864 law banning nearly all abortions in the state.

The law is not expected to take effect until June, but Leah, 29, worried that the state’s abortion clinics might be overwhelmed by an influx of patients or shut down abruptly. And she could not afford to take time off from her job installing bathroom showers to travel to another state for the procedure.

So on Saturday morning, she threaded past a handful of protesters waving signs that read “You Shall Not Murder” and checked in at the Acacia Women’s Center in Phoenix.

“I might have taken a couple more weeks” to consider her options, she said. “But I kind of felt like my hands were tied.”

The court’s ruling this week reinstated a Civil War-era law that outlaws abortion from the moment of conception, which could have far-reaching consequences for women and has the potential to reshape the 2024 election. Inside the lobby of Acacia, the ruling felt deeply personal to Leah and other women, a decision that made them reluctant players in a series of national battles over contraception, in vitro fertilization and women’s health.

The ruling set off outrage and political maneuvering. The state’s Democratic lawmakers scrambled, but failed, to repeal the law and lawyers on both sides are preparing for more battles over whether to implement it.

As the patients at Acacia scrolled through their phones and texted friends while waiting for their names to be called this weekend, they said the judges and politicians who supported banning abortion did not understand their lives, or why they had decided to get abortions.

In the decision, the justices said that because the federal right to abortion in Roe v. Wade had now been overturned, nothing prevented Arizona from enforcing the 1864 law. They also said their job was to interpret two potentially conflicting state laws, not to make a policy judgment about abortion.

Abortion-rights groups argued that the 1864 ban — which prohibits all abortions, including in cases of rape or incest, but makes an exception for ones that would save the mother’s life — had essentially been superseded by a 2022 law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks. But Arizona never took the earlier law off the books, and the 15-week ban stressed that it was not repealing the 1864 law or creating any state right to abortion.

The women at the clinic said it was already challenging to get an abortion in Arizona. Patients have to consult with their doctors and have a sonogram at least 24 hours in advance, as well as listen to a state-mandated script describing the risks of abortion and development of their fetus. Some of Arizona’s seven abortion clinics were already booked through the end of April, they said, and they worried that their window was closing fast.

Patients at Acacia raced to find out: Would their appointments be canceled? Where would they go if Arizona’s clinics shut down? Would they have to continue their pregnancies?

“It freaked me out,” said Joanne, 29, who called the clinic the instant she heard about the ruling. “It’s terrifying. It’s baffling that it would even be a reality.”

Most of the 10 women interviewed for this article asked to be identified only by their first names to protect their privacy or to avoid losing their jobs.

Some came alone, and said they could not tell their parents they were pregnant. Others sat with their mothers or boyfriends. They counted out cash for the procedures — $1,000 for a surgical abortion, and $750 for abortion pills — and made plans with family about how to get home and what they would order for dinner afterward.

Many said they could not understand why the Arizona Supreme Court, whose justices are all Republican appointees, would force them to live under a law written before women could vote or open bank accounts.

Some said they supported Arizona’s existing 15-week restriction on abortions, but said the 1864 ban was too much.

Like 60 percent of women nationwide who receive abortions, Jordan, 29, already had a child. But she said she suffered such severe postpartum depression after having her son that she almost committed suicide. She worried she might not survive a second pregnancy.

Esmerelda, 25, also already had a child, a 7-month-old daughter, but said it would be impossible for her to afford another one. She spends $1,000 a month for a babysitter, and said another baby would force her to quit her job and hurt her family’s finances.

As she sat in the lobby, Esmerelda said she wanted the doctor to give her abortion pills while they were still legal. She said she was worried about what would happen to women who need abortions once the 1864 law is implemented.

Like many abortion clinics, Acacia has long been a battleground. Protesters with bullhorns yell at women to turn around and wave signs condemning its owner, Dr. Ronald Yunis, an obstetrician-gynecologist, as a baby killer.

“We know he doesn’t like us here,” said Chad McDonald, 43, a construction worker who was part of the protest at the clinic on Saturday. “These babies are human beings, just like a 4-year-old is a human being.”

Mr. McDonald said he had been disappointed that some anti-abortion Republicans in Arizona had recently changed course and called to scrap the 1864 law, including Kari Lake, who is running for U.S. Senate.

Other conservatives, including the state’s Freedom Caucus, have defended the ruling. Jake Warner, a lawyer with the conservative Christian group Alliance Defending Freedom, said it would allow Arizona to “fully protect life.”

Dr. Yunis turns on the sprinklers and blares Nine Inch Nails outside the clinic to drown out the demonstrators’ shouts. Protesters said he had poured ammonia at their feet. In 2019, he was arrested on a charge of pointing a gun at protesters as he drove away from the clinic. Dr. Yunis pleaded guilty to a charge of disorderly conduct and was dropped by Medicare, but he said he had been defending himself against increasingly aggressive protesters.

“The guy was coming at my car,” he said. “How many abortion providers have been murdered in the last 20 years? There’s a legitimate fear that someone running at your car after blocking your driveway might be meaning you harm.”

Dr. Yunis and his small staff said the two years since Roe was overturned have been full of chaos and uncertainty. Now, some are bracing to be laid off if they can no longer perform abortions in the state.

Irma Jo Fernandez-Leos signs in women at the front desk. These days, she also asks them whether they want to sign a petition to support a ballot measure that would protect abortion as a constitutional right in Arizona. She said a vast majority of patients tell her they are not registered to vote.

“It frustrates me,” she said. “It’s like, do you know how many of us it takes to make a difference?”

Some patients fly in from Texas, Florida and other states with strict abortion bans, and cannot vote in Arizona. Others are undocumented. And some, like Iris, 17, are too young to vote.

Iris learned she was pregnant three weeks ago. She had a son when she was 16, and she said she was already stretched to her limit as she tried to raise a 13-month-old, finish high school and work afternoon shifts at Burger King. She worried that having another child would make it impossible for her go to community college next year to study medical assisting.

“It’s not the right time,” she said. “I don’t want to work at Burger King the rest of my life. I want to go to school.”

She did not know how she could squeeze another crib into the bedroom where she and her son sleep in her family’s mobile home. So, on Friday morning, she sat in the clinic’s lobby, bouncing her 13-month-old on her lap and waiting for her name to be called.

Her mother, Ruby, had taken the morning off from her job as a cleaner to accompany Iris to the clinic. She said she had religious misgivings about abortion, but was forced to set them aside.

“It’s not allowed under God,” Ruby said, “but sometimes, it’s necessary.”

Iris said she believed abortion should be legal, and that she would vote to support pro-choice candidates or Arizona’s abortion-rights ballot measure. But she turns 18 on Nov. 6, one day after the election.

Jack Healy is a Phoenix-based national correspondent who focuses on the fast-changing politics and climate of the Southwest. He has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan and is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s journalism school. More about Jack Healy

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9 facts about u.s. catholics.

Catholics are one of the largest religious groups in the United States, outnumbering any single Protestant denomination. The U.S. has more Catholics than all but three other countries – Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines – according to the Vatican’s Statistical Yearbook of the Church.

Here are nine key facts about the U.S. Catholic population.

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to serve as a reference source on the basic demographic attributes, religious characteristics and political preferences of U.S. Catholics.

The analysis draws mainly on data from the Center’s National Public Opinion Reference Surveys (NPORS) conducted in 2022 and 2023. NPORS is an annual survey of U.S. adults who are selected for participation using address-based sampling from the U.S. Postal Service’s Delivery Sequence File. Respondents may answer either by paper or online.

This post also relies on a variety of surveys conducted online among respondents who are part of the Center’s American Trends Panel or other national survey panels recruited through random sampling (not “opt-in” polls).

All of the surveys used in this analysis are weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, education and other categories.

Today, 20% of U.S. adults describe themselves as Catholics, according to our latest survey. This percentage has been generally stable since 2014. But it is slightly lower than in 2007, when 24% of U.S. adults identified as Catholic.

Overall, there were about 262 million adults in the U.S. in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau . This suggests that there are roughly 52 million Catholic adults nationwide.

Most U.S. Catholics are White, but a third are Hispanic. The Catholic population is 57% White, 33% Hispanic, 4% Asian and 2% Black, while 3% are of another race.

Since 2007, the share of U.S. Catholics who are White has dropped by 8 percentage points, while the share who are Hispanic has ticked upward by 4 points.

This change has implications for the profile of Catholic Americans as a whole because White Catholics have distinctive social and political traits, as we’ll discuss in more detail below.

Catholics tend to be older than Americans overall. Nearly six-in-ten Catholic adults (58%) are ages 50 and older. Among all U.S. adults in the survey, by comparison, 48% fall in this age range.

But Hispanic Catholics tend to be a lot younger than White Catholics. Fewer than half of Hispanic Catholics (43%) are 50 and older, compared with about two-thirds (68%) of White Catholics. And just 14% of Hispanic Catholics are ages 65 and older, versus 38% of White Catholics.

Roughly three-in-ten U.S. Catholics (29%) live in the South, while 26% live in the Northeast, 24% in the West and 21% in the Midwest.

The racial and ethnic profile of the Catholic population varies considerably by region. For example, in the Midwest, 80% of Catholics are White and 17% are Hispanic. In the Northeast, 72% of Catholics are White and 19% are Hispanic.

In the South, 49% are White and 40% are Hispanic. And in the West, there are more Hispanic Catholics than White Catholics (55% vs. 30%).

About a third of U.S. Catholics (32%) have a bachelor’s degree. Another 28% have some college experience but not a bachelor’s degree, and 40% have a high school education or less. This distribution is similar to that of the general adult population.

On average, White Catholics have higher levels of educational attainment than Hispanic Catholics. Roughly four-in-ten White Catholics (39%) have at least a bachelor’s degree, while 32% have a high school education or less. Among Hispanic Catholics, 16% have a bachelor’s degree and 59% have a high school education or less.

About three-in-ten U.S. Catholics (28%) say they attend Mass weekly or more often. Larger shares of Catholics say they pray on a daily basis (52%) and say religion is very important in their life (46%).

Overall, 20% of U.S. Catholics say they attend Mass weekly and pray daily and consider religion very important in their life. By contrast, 10% of Catholics say they attend Mass a few times a year or less often and pray seldom or never and consider religion not too or not all important in their life.

By way of comparison, 40% of U.S. Protestants say they attend services at least weekly. And about two-thirds of Protestants pray daily (67%) and say religion is very important in their life (66%).

About half of Catholic registered voters (52%) identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, while 44% affiliate with the Democratic Party.

But partisan affiliation varies by race and ethnicity. Roughly six-in-ten White Catholic registered voters (61%) say they identify with or lean toward the GOP, compared with 35% of Hispanic Catholics.

Conversely, 60% of Hispanic Catholics who are registered voters say they identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, compared with 37% of White Catholics.

In the 2022 congressional midterm elections, 56% of Catholics said they voted for Republican candidates, while 43% backed Democrats. And in the 2020 presidential election, Catholic voters were split down the middle: 49% backed Donald Trump and 50% voted for Joe Biden.

These overall splits hide big differences between White and Hispanic Catholic voters. For example, White Catholics favored Trump over Biden by a 15-point margin in 2020, while Hispanic Catholics backed Biden over Trump by a 35-point margin.

While the Catholic Church opposes abortion , about six-in-ten Catholics say abortion should be legal. This includes 39% who say it should be legal in most cases and 22% who say it should be legal in all cases. Roughly four-in-ten Catholics say abortion should be illegal in most (28%) or all (11%) cases.

Catholics’ opinions about abortion tend to align with their political leanings. Among Catholic Democrats, 78% say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Among Catholic Republicans, 43% say this.

Catholic Democrats are a little less likely than non-Catholic Democrats to say abortion should be legal in most or all cases (78% vs. 86%).

Three-quarters of Catholics view Pope Francis favorably, according to our February 2024 survey. That’s a little lower than the 80% of Catholics or more who expressed a positive view of Francis in many previous polls during his papacy, which began in 2013.

Catholic Democrats (89%) are much more likely than Catholic Republicans (63%) to view Francis favorably.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published Sept. 4, 2018.

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Under Pope Francis, the College of Cardinals has become less European

Two-thirds of u.s. catholics unaware of pope’s new restrictions on traditional latin mass, many catholics in latin america – including a majority in brazil – support allowing priests to marry, just one-third of u.s. catholics agree with their church that eucharist is body, blood of christ, most popular.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .