Take our survey: What is an “abortion”?
In October 2023, Social Science Medicine published “Technically an abortion”: Understanding perceptions and definitions of abortion in the United States. The researchers presented survey participants with descriptions of pregnancy scenarios and asked the participants whether the scenarios were abortions. Participants could answer “yes, definitely,” “no, definitely not,” “maybe, it depends,” and “I don’t know.”
I liked the idea of the survey. Especially since Dobbs, there’s been a lot of public debate about how we define “abortion.” Both pro-choice and pro-life activists may have very specific ideas of what the definition ought to be, but I’d like to know more about what non-activist everyday person thinks “abortion” means.
So this survey was a cool concept. But the descriptions of pregnancy scenarios were sometimes pretty vague, which means the participants’ answers were less enlightening.
For example, participants were supposed to indicate whether someone who “had an ectopic pregnancy” had an abortion. Are they asking if the existence of ectopic pregnancy is an abortion? It’s just a strange way to ask the question.
Similarly, participants were supposed to indicate whether someone who “had a procedure to end a pregnancy at a doctor’s office” had an abortion. What procedure? There are multiple ways to end a pregnancy.
I liked the concept but wanted more information. That’s why I designed our What is an “abortion”? survey.
The survey describes multiple scenarios for each of the following categories:
- Ectopic pregnancy
- Mifepristone/Misoprostol
- D&C
- Previable labor induction
- Previable D&E
- Premature labor induction for live birth
- Induced fetal demise and labor induction
- C-sections, and
- Scenarios which involve no medical intervention
The scenarios in the survey don’t account for every factor, but I tried to capture a broad overview. Feel encouraged to take the survey and leave notes about what you found confusing, conflicting, or thought-provoking.
