Study on Reproductive Rights and Domestic Violence: Being Denied an Abortion ‘Tethered Women to Violent Men’
Demographer Diana Greene Foster studies the effects of unintended pregnancy on women’s lives. Foster and a team of researchers have spent years interviewing women who were able to terminate their pregnancies close to the cut-off date, usually around 20 weeks, to demographically similar women who wanted an abortion but — often because their pregnancies exceeded gestational limits for the procedure — were turned away by clinics. (This is a reality that more women will be forced to confront as state legislatures continue to pass laws designed to shutter clinics and place time, economic and geographical barriers between women and basic medical care.)
The interviews cover topics from physical and mental health to employment and relationships. On Monday, findings from the study on intimate partner violence, pregnancy, parenthood and abortion were published by BMC Medicine, and those findings were striking.
Incidents of intimate partner violence by the man involved in the pregnancy went down among women who were able to have an abortion, but remained consistent for women who carried their pregnancies to term. The reason, according to Foster, was that “being unable to have the abortion tethered women to violent men, while women who have the abortion were more able to escape abusive relationships.”