An exploration of the reasons women give for choosing legal termination of pregnancy at Soshanguve Community Health Centre, Pretoria, South Africa

South African Family Practice

 
 
Field Value
 
Title An exploration of the reasons women give for choosing legal termination of pregnancy at Soshanguve Community Health Centre, Pretoria, South Africa
 
Creator Steyn, Carrien Govender, Indiran Ndimande, John Velaphi
 
Subject — legal termination of pregnancy; reasons for choosing termination of pregnancy; financial difficulties; contraceptive failure
Description Background: Termination of pregnancy (TOP) is one of the most commonly performed gynaecological procedures in the world and was legalised in South Africa in 1996 with the passing of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1996 (Act No. 29 of 1996). Utilisation of the TOP service increased significantly after the promulgation of the Act, to the extent that 7% of pregnant women in South Africa chose to terminate their pregnancies legally in 2012. Worldwide, women most commonly state their reasons for choosing TOP as a desire to stop or postpone childbearing. Although several international studies have been done in this regard, the reasons for women requesting legalised TOP in South Africa have not been explored in depth.Methods: A qualitative study using the case-study approach and involving one-on-one open interviews with participants was done at the TOP Clinic at Soshanguve Clinic 3 with the aim of gaining more insight into this issue.Results: The following themes emerged from the interviews: formal education not completed, financial difficulties, contraceptive failure, wrong timing, reasons relating to the existing family; and problems relating to the partner.Conclusion: This study also gave insight into the complex personal and social contexts within which women make the decision to terminate their pregnancy, and the thoughtfulness with which they make their decisions.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2018-08-28
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Peer-reviewed Article —
Format application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/safp.v60i4.4908
 
Source South African Family Practice; Vol 60, No 4 (2018): July/August; 55 2078-6204 2078-6190
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://safpj.co.za/index.php/safpj/article/view/4908/5807
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Carrien Steyn, Indiran Govender, John Velaphi Ndimande https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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