What makes abortion a difficult experience

This thesis draws on twenty-three women's retrospective accounts of their abortion experiences to examine the course of their feelings and the social, situational and personal contexts in which these feelings arose. Their experiences and feelings were affected by abortion's morally ambiguous status; its quasi-legal status (particularly between 1969 and 1988); its provision in medical settings in ways that differ significantly from the provision of other health services; and the on-going polarized ideological conflict over its acceptability. The experiences and feelings of the women interviewed were also affected subtly and profoundly by widely held expectations about how women in such situations normally do and should feel. The thesis examines the "feeling rules" (Hochschild, 1979) women encountered in interactions with others (confidants and health-care providers, notably abortion counselors) and how women's actual feelings, especially after the abortion, became problematic