Directive counselling undermines “safe” abortion
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I , du Toit, Ryan
- Date: 2023
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434096 , vital:73031 , ISBN 97817936442138 , https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793644213/Sexual-and-Reproductive-Justice-From-the-Margins-to-the-Centre
- Description: Sexual and Reproductive Justice: From the Margins to the Centre offers new insights and perspectives on sexual and reproductive justice. The thought-provoking and diverse contributions in this volume — which range from indigenous approaches to sexual violence to gender-affirming primary and mental healthcare — extend sexual and reproductive justice scholarship, and spark critical questions, novel thinking, and ongoing dialogue in this field.
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- Date Issued: 2023
‘Bad choices’: Unintended pregnancy and abortion in nurses’ and counsellors’ accounts of providing pre-abortion counselling
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444139 , vital:74195 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459320988873"
- Description: Little research tackles healthcare providers’ experiences in conducting pre-abortion counselling sessions in circumstances where pregnant persons may request an abortion. We report on a study conducted in South Africa, in which two nurses and two counsellors were asked about how they conduct these counselling sessions. Using a synthetic narrative approach, we present these health workers’ micro-narratives about their motivations for providing abortion services, the purpose of the counselling, their information-giving practices, and whether and how third parties are included in the counselling. We highlight how these micro-narratives are premised on discursive resources that problematise unintended pregnancy and abortion. These resources enable and justify directive counselling that undermines pregnant peoples’ reproductive autonomy. We locate such directiveness within dominant anti-abortion discourse and call for training to reframe normative understandings of abortion.
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- Date Issued: 2021
'Choice' in women's abortion decision-making narratives: Introducing a supportability approach
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Chiweshe, Malvern T , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/446220 , vital:74482
- Description: Liberal abortion legislation emphasises pregnant persons' autonomous choices in abortion decision-making. Within psychological theories, decision-making is understood as largely individual, rational and cognitive, with various factors affecting women's1 abortion decision-making. In this study, purposively recruited from three sites in South Africa and three sites in Zimbabwe, 25 and 18 women, respectively, participated in narrative interviews which were analysed using thematic analysis and a supportability framework. Participants' narratives constructed continuation of the pregnancy as a 'non-option, abortion emerging as the only solution. Economic resources, gender norms and partnerships, and the undesirability of the pregnancy meant the pregnancy was unsupportable at micro- and macro-levels, and sometimes despite parenting being desired by the women. A supportability framework offers opportunities to understand reproductive decision-making as imbricated in the circumstances of the pregnancy which render it (un)supportable, therefore opening up or closing down particular decisions. This framework enables a necessary shift, towards systemic understandings of decision-making, and a possible reduction in abortion-related stigma.
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- Date Issued: 2020
Contradictions in womxn’s experiences of pre-abortion counselling in South Africa: Implications for client‐centred practice
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/443638 , vital:74140 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12330"
- Description: Pre-abortion counselling may play a key role in abortion seekers’ understanding of their decision to terminate a pregnancy and the subsequent emotions that they feel. In this paper, we report on a study conducted in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa concerning womxn's experiences of the pre-abortion counselling offered as part of the implementation of the Choice of Termination Act that governs the provision of legal abortion in the country. Using a narrative-discursive lens, the analysis revealed four micro-narratives in which participants appreciated non-directive and empathic counselling, as well as being provided with information. They also indicated that the counselling was upsetting and hurtful, particularly when providers drew on the awfulisation of abortion discourse to suggest that abortion leads to terrible consequences, and foetal personhood discourse to intimate that terminating the pregnancy is wrong and other alternatives (adoption, parenting) are better. The connection between these broadly positive and negative responses may lie in the dominance of anti-abortion discourses coupled with the powerful positioning of healthcare providers as experts. The attendant disempowerment of clients within the health clinic setting may constrain pregnant people's ability to question such ‘expert’ information. The implications for feminist client-centred pre-abortion counselling are discussed.
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- Date Issued: 2020
Resisting abortion stigma in situ: South African womxn's and healthcare providers' accounts of the pre-abortion counselling healthcare encounter
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/443749 , vital:74149 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2019.1674922"
- Description: Abortion providers and pregnant people who undergo abortion potentially face significant stigma. Researchers have started to explore how womxn respond to abortion stigma, usually focusing on individual strategies in managing or reducing stigma effects. Drawing on narrative data from research conducted on womxn’s and healthcare providers’ experiences of the pre-abortion healthcare encounter in the South African public health sector, we highlight how stigma may be resisted in social ways within this context. Everyday chatter and informal social support amongst womxn in the waiting room provided a counterpoint for health service providers’ ascription of shame to the womxn, and a sense of solidarity amongst the womxn. Health service providers narrated their decision to do abortion work through the socially affirming hero canonical narrative, and womxn described their counselling as helpful. These social and discursive practices resist the awfulisation of abortion and provide relief for the womxn and the healthcare providers in particular contexts.
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- Date Issued: 2020
Overcoming essentialism in community psychology: The use of a narrative-discursive approach within African feminisms
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Chiweshe, Malvern T , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434131 , vital:73033 , ISBN 978-3-030-20000-8 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20001-5_2
- Description: A decolonial feminist community psychology approach understands individual experience as being embedded in, enabled and shaped by discursive and social power relations, and that transformative change is only possible through this contextualised understanding of individual experiences. African feminisms have been concerned with the challenging task of exploring and producing accounts of the complexity and multiplicity in womxn’s (and mxn’s) experiences of localised, multiple forms of oppression and the resistances enacted against them. We demonstrate how the utilisation of a narrative-discursive method in research that is guided by poststructural and postcolonial African feminist theorising may be a useful tool in realising the goals and aims of both decolonial feminist community psychology, and African feminist theorising. In this chapter, we draw on research that explored Zimbabwean womxn’s narratives of abortion decision-making and South African womxn’s and healthcare providers’ narratives of their experiences of the pre-abortion counselling healthcare encounter in the Eastern Cape public health sector. We also draw on our own intervention, a policy brief that had been developed into pre-abortion counselling guidelines which were informed by womxn’s narrated experiences. We argue that applying a narrative-discursive approach to African feminist theorising enables understandings of African womxn’s experiences and resistances which are informed by definitions of racial identity and culture, womxnhood, and social reality as dynamic social concepts and practices. These kinds of understandings facilitate community psychology interventions that are relevant and ‘emancipatory’ as they stem from the multiplicity of participants’ narrated experiences and the social and discursive power relations implicit in these narratives.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Pregnancy Decision Making: Abortion and Adoption
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434145 , vital:73034 , ISBN 9781119161899 , https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781119171492
- Description: Pregnancy decision making encompasses a large range of interactions, including decisions and actions to avoid pregnancy or to become pregnant. This entry addresses the question of decision making regarding the outcome of a pregnancy: abortion or taking the pregnancy to term, with the latter resulting in parenting or adoption placement. Adolescents' pregnancy decision making has been a special area of focus for some decades now, particularly regarding whether adolescents are capable of making termination-of-pregnancy decisions. This entry highlights controversies concerning, first, teenage pregnancy as a social problem; second, risk research that seeks to outline the consequences of various reproductive decisions; third, questions around adolescents' maturity regarding making reproductive decisions; fourth, the reasons provided for various reproductive decisions; and, finally, issues surrounding the autonomy of young pregnant women in their reproductive decisions.
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- Date Issued: 2019
Psychological knowledge production about abortion: the politics of location and representation
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Chiweshe, Malvern T , du Toit, Ryan
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/443734 , vital:74148 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsrh-2018-200208"
- Description: Despite considerable psychology research being conducted on abortion, there has been no study of the history of psychological knowledge production on the topic. The aim of our research was to analyse journal articles published in English language psychology journals using a politics of location and of representation analytical lens.
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- Date Issued: 2019
‘Failed’ mothers, ‘failed’ womxn
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Feltham-King, Tracey , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Morison, Tracy
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434050 , vital:73028 , ISBN 9781032082967 , https://www.routledge.com/Intersections-of-Mothering-Feminist-Accounts/Zufferey-Buchanan/p/book/9781032082967
- Description: Mothering occurs within unequal power relations associated with the disadvantages and privileges of an unjust and patriarchal society. Social inequalities associated with gender, race, class, age, ability, sexuality, violence and nationalism intersect in the lives of women as mothers, to shape their lived experiences and perspectives on mothering. Showcasing the breadth and depth of feminist research on mothering, this book gives attention to the diversity of ways in which mothering is constructed and responded to as well as how mothering is experienced. Drawing on intersectional feminist thought, the book challenges normative visions of ‘good mothering’ and interrogates constructs of ‘bad mothering’. It brings together insights from multidisciplinary scholars who use feminist approaches in their research on mothering, to inform policy development and practice when working with women as mothers in diverse circumstances. Intersections of Mothering highlights the complexities of mothering in a contemporary world, show the benefits of considering mothering through an intersectional feminist lens, make visible lived experiences of mothers and provides challenges to dominant imaginings of and service responses to women as mothers.
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- Date Issued: 2019
A critical review of sanctioned knowledge production concerning abortion in Africa: Implications for feminist health psychology
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Chiweshe, Malvern T , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444212 , vital:74207 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105316644294"
- Description: Taking a feminist health psychology approach, we conducted a systematic review of published research on abortion featured in PsycINFO over a 7-year period. We analysed the 39 articles included in the review in terms of countries in which the research was conducted, types of research, issues covered, the way the research was framed and main findings. Despite 97per cent of abortions performed in Africa being classifiable as unsafe, there has been no engagement in knowledge production about abortion in Africa from psychologists, outside of South Africa. Given this, we outline the implications of the current knowledge base for feminism, psychology and feminist health psychology in Africa.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Contesting sexual violence policies in higher education: the case of Rhodes University
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Böhmke, Werner , Barker, Kim , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Chiweshe, Malvern T
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444275 , vital:74212 , xlink:href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JACPR-05-2017-0295/full/html"
- Description: – In April 2016, students at Rhodes University brought the institution to a standstill as they protested the University’s sexual violence policies and procedures, as well as the “rape culture” that pervades social structures. In response, a Sexual Violence Task Team (SVTT) was formed in an open, participatory, and transparent process. Members of the University community were invited to comment on drafts of the SVTT document. The purpose of this paper is to outline the contestations – arising from both the establishment of the task team and the inputs from University members to drafts of the document – that surfaced concerning managing sexual violence on campuses and sexual offences policies.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Reproductive justice in context: South African and Zimbabwean women’s narratives of their abortion decision
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern T , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444371 , vital:74223 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517699234"
- Description: The abortion decision-making process is embedded within overlapping power relations. Using a post-colonial feminist framework, we analyse South African and Zimbabwean women’s narratives regarding their abortion decision. As neighbouring countries, South Africa and Zimbabwe provide a useful counterpoint as they have common and differing social histories and very different abortion legislation. In our analysis, we unpick transversal commonalities and divergences in the discursive resources deployed by the women in their narratives in the two sites. Commonalities included the women feeling compelled to justify their abortion decision in the interactive interview space, an absence of a reproductive rights discourse, and the deployment of relationship embedded discourses in the justificatory work performed by the women. The ‘‘conjugalisation of reproduction’’, ‘‘imperative of good mothering’’, and ‘‘unstable partner relationships’’ discourses featured across both sites but the manner in which these were deployed differed. These discursive resources allowed the women to position themselves as making responsible decisions. The Zimbabwean women spoke of shame and hiding, a discursive resource that was explicitly absent in the South African women’s accounts. We conclude by arguing that our post-colonial feminist approach allows for a contextualised reproductive justice stance to abortion decision-making that identifies both transnational and context-specific power relations.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Health Psychology and the framing of abortion in Africa: a critical review of the literature
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Chiweshe, Malvern T , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143871 , vital:38290 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Despite 97% of abortions performed in Africa being classifiable as unsafe, there has been virtually no engagement in knowledge production about abortion in Africa from psychologists, outside of South Africa. Taking a feminist health psychology approach, we conducted a systematic review of published research on this topic featured in PsycINFO over a six year period. We analysed the 39 articles included in the review in terms of countries in which the research was conducted, types of research, issues covered, framings, and main findings. The results show that apart from a public health framing, perspectives that foreground contextual, social, cultural, gendered perspectives dominate. While abortion services, unsafe abortion and the incidence of abortion were well researched, so too were attitudes and public discourses on abortion. Clinical psychological, reproductive justice or rights and medical framings received little attention. We outline the implications of this knowledge base for feminist health psychology in Africa.
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- Date Issued: 2015
Women’s micro-narratives of the process of abortion decision-making: justifying the decision to have an abortion
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143893 , vital:38292 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: What is missing from abortion research is research that explores women’s narratives of the processes of abortion decision-making in a way that acknowledges the constraints placed on ‘choice’. This study sought to explore, using Foucauldian feminist post-structuralism and a narrative-discursive approach, women’s micro-narratives of the abortion decision-making process. Purposive sampling was used to recruit a total of 25 participants from three abortion facilities in the Eastern Cape. Participants were unmarried ‘Black’ women between the ages of 19 and 35, and were mostly unemployed. Narrative interviews were done with the women. Analysis revealed an over-arching narrative in which women described the abortion decision as something that they were ‘forced’ into by their circumstances. To construct this narrative, women justified the decision to have an abortion by drawing on discourses that normalise certain practices located within the husband-wife and parent-child axes and make the pregnancy a problematic, unsupported and unsupportable one. Gendered and generational power relations reinforced this and contributed to the obstruction of reproductive justice.
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- Date Issued: 2015