Women’s Fertility and Abortion Decision amidst Religiosity, Normative and Moral Processes, Competing Discourses and Stigma in Addis Ababa
| dc.contributor.advisor | Tadele, Getnet (Professor) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Tsegaye, Addisu | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2019-02-20T09:03:46Z | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2023-11-18T12:16:31Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2019-02-20T09:03:46Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2023-11-18T12:16:31Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2018-11 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Fertility control and abortion are the contentious issues in discussions related to human sexuality, reproductive health and rights. Abortion is often a contending political, moral, legal and medical agenda. With its moral messages, religion promotes chastity, marriage and fertility. Hence, it objects fertility control and abortion, because they are construed as defiance against God’s will. Religion sees the fetus as root of human being and abortion as a murder of an innocent. Christianity condemns abortion in all grounds, but Islamic religion allows abortion only to save the life of the mother. Due to the moral and religious bases of abortion interpretation, legalization of abortion has been challenging in many parts of the world, including Ethiopia. Though the 2005 revised abortion law of Ethiopian has broadened grounds on which abortion can be provided, maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion continues to be a serious health problem in the country. A number of studies have been conducted to explain why this could be the case, despite they employed medical model perspectives. The researcher argues this necessitates a need for adequate understanding of women’s subjective experiences on how normative processes, competing discourses, stigma and religiosity influence their intents of fertility and abortion. In light of this, semi structured in-depth interview was conducted to collect qualitative information from 13 women (six Orthodox Christian, three Protestants and fours Muslims) purposively selected from among contraceptives and abortion seekers in FGA Model Clinic and the MSIE Arada Branch, Addis Ababa. To substantiate the information obtained from the in-depth interviewees about the role of religious teachings on sexual behaviors, fertility and abortion three FGDS were conducted with 21(nine Orthodox Christians, six Muslims and Six Protestants) AAU girl students selected through a snowball sampling, based on their roles in religious service. In order to understand how religions interpret girls’ and women’s sexuality, fertility control, abortion and the current abortion law, key informant interviews were made with five religious leaders ( three Orthodox, one Muslim and one protestant). In addition three health professionals working on abortion and community awareness and one legal expert participated in the key informant interviews and provided their e insights. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings of the research indicated that women who make fertility and abortion decision are entangle in complex normative processes, stigmatizing conditions, and competing perspectives. Premarital and extramarital sex is socially stigmatized and religiously prohibited, because they are socially degrading and religiously adulterous and sinful. Abortion is condemned, because it is morally and religiously seen as a murder; not as medically justifiable procedure as medical discourses claim or as a woman’s right as presented in legal discourses. Women keep their abortion experiences secret either to retreat or as a means to pass through the stigma and neglect. In addition to social stigma, most of the women said abortion decision making process involves emotional problems such as regret, shock and self-imposed stigma although there were some girls who had relief and mixed feelings. The researcher recommends that efforts to provide safe abortion in the country should address locally embedded normative processes, moral aspects and stigmatizing conditions. Also the need for further study in rural areas where there could be much stronger socio-cultural normative processes, moral grounds and stigmatizing conditions influencing women’s fertility and abortion decisions. Key Words: Abortion, Normative Process, Discourse, Religiosity, Stigma, Unsafe Abortion | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/16475 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | en_US |
| dc.subject | Abortion | en_US |
| dc.subject | Normative Process | en_US |
| dc.subject | Discourse | en_US |
| dc.subject | Religiosity | en_US |
| dc.subject | Stigma | en_US |
| dc.subject | Unsafe Abortion | en_US |
| dc.title | Women’s Fertility and Abortion Decision amidst Religiosity, Normative and Moral Processes, Competing Discourses and Stigma in Addis Ababa | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |