Stigma, Shame, and Sexuality: A Reflection on Abortion

by Stigma Shame and Sexuality Series, Gender Across Borders

"The one that has an abortion is treated as…as bad, as a killer and…the other one is…is a good woman, she has a good heart, she loves children.”

Sound familiar? The quote comes from a woman from the Copperbelt Province in Zambia during focus group interviews with Ipas, but it could be anywhere in the world. Let’s face it: individuals who have had abortions or provide them are too often labeled, discriminated against and dehumanized.

This stigma surrounding abortion and anyone associated with it — women, providers, pharmacists and advocates — contributes toits social, medical and legal marginalization. And this marginalization can keep women from getting the health care they need.

Abortion stigma is never just about abortion but plays out and attaches to different social issues and debates. In the United States, abortion has become a lynchpin in our political debates and cultural wars – and the sentiment has spread to other countries. Ipas’s research in Zambia shows that women in certain communities who terminate their pregnancies are forced to go through a public cleansing process as a form of punishment for not carrying a pregnancy to term.

“In a village setting, when a girl aborts she is supposed to be confined in a house for at least one month. She is also not allowed to touch certain things in the house or go to the stream to fetch for water as well because it is believed that she may cause people to get sick because of the spirit of abortion she bears. The headman would then assign people to go talk to this girl that she needs to be cleansed first before she can begin to mix with people again because she may bring some diseases on people.” more on >>

Source: http://www.rhrealitycheck.org