"I mean, I didn't really have a choice of anything:" How incarceration influences abortion decision-making and precludes access in the United States.

Autor: Sufrin CB; Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.; Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA., Devon-Williamston A; Topos Partnership, Washington, DC, USA., Beal L; Wild West Access Fund, Reno, Nevada, USA., Hayes CM; Department of Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence, Gillings School of Global Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA., Kramer C; Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Perspectives on sexual and reproductive health [Perspect Sex Reprod Health] 2023 Sep; Vol. 55 (3), pp. 165-177. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jul 02.
DOI: 10.1363/psrh.12235
Abstrakt: Objective: To understand how the punitive, rights-limiting, and racially stratified environment of incarceration in the United States (US) shapes the abortion desires, access, and pregnancy experiences of pregnant women, transgender men, and gender non-binary individuals.
Methods: From May 2018-November 2020, we conducted semi-structured, qualitative interviews with pregnant women in prisons and jails in an abortion supportive and an abortion restrictive state. Interviews explored whether participants considered abortion for this pregnancy; attempted to obtain an abortion in custody; whether and how incarceration affected their thoughts about pregnancy, birth, parenting, and abortion; and options counseling and prenatal care experiences, or lack thereof, in custody.
Results: The conditions of incarceration deeply shaped our 39 participants' abortion and pregnancy decisions, with some experiencing pregnancy continuation as punishment. Four themes emerged: (1) medical providers' overt obstruction of desired abortions; (2) participants assuming that incarcerated women had no right to abortion; (3) carceral bureaucracy constraining abortion access; and (4) carceral conditions made women wish they had aborted. Themes were similar in supportive and restrictive states.
Conclusions: Incarceration shaped participants' thoughts about pregnancy and their abilities to access abortion, consider whether abortion was an attainable option, and make pregnancy-related decisions. These subtle carceral control aspects presented more frequent barriers to abortion than overt logistical ones. The carceral environment played a more significant role than the state's overall abortion climate in shaping abortion experiences. Incarceration constrains and devalues reproductive wellbeing in punitive ways that are a microcosm of broader forces of reproductive control in US society.
(© 2023 University of Ottawa.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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