From acceptability to legalization: Gendered attitudes to abortion in West Africa

This paper presents part of the findings of a large scale qualitative study of practices and attitudes to contraception, unwanted pregnancy and abortion in Burkina Faso, Ghana and Senegal. Findings from interviews reveal that attitudes to abortion are not binary but complex and nuanced. Responses went far beyond religion, capturing a diverse range of views. Analysis of representations of abortion, including attitudes towards its medicalisation and legalization, revealed the ways in which individuals negotiate the relatively common occurrence of abortion and its associated dangers with its illegality and social unacceptability. Importantly, attitudes to abortion were not always consistent with personal experience. Representations of abortion, and the ways in which they were constructed, were shaped by gender roles and gender relations. These representations are therefore powerful revealers of social structures and gender relations, and also of changes within them. This is particularly relevant in a context of economic crisis in much of sub-Saharan Africa, and helps explain gender differences in attitudes to abortion, and the effects of education and generation. This study goes beyond previous research in this area in painting a diverse and complex picture of representations of abortion, from the perspectives of both men and women