Brazilian adolescents' knowledge and beliefs about abortion methods: a school-based internet inquiry.

BACKGROUND: Internet surveys that draw from traditionally generated samples provide the unique conditions to engage adolescents in exploration of sensitive health topics. METHODS: We examined awareness of unwanted pregnancy, abortion behaviour, methods, and attitudes toward specific legal indications for abortion via a school-based internet survey among 378 adolescents aged 12-21 years in three Rio de Janeiro public schools. RESULTS: Forty-five percent knew peers who had undergone an abortion. Most students (66.0%) did not disclose abortion method knowledge. However, girls (aOR 4.2, 95% CI 2.4-7.2), those who had experienced their sexual debut (aOR1.76, 95% CI 1.1-3.0), and those attending a prestigious magnet school (aOR 2.7 95% CI 1.4-6.3) were more likely to report methods. Most abortion methods (79.3%) reported were ineffective, obsolete, and/or unsafe. Herbs (e.g. marijuana tea), over-the-counter medications, surgical procedures, foreign objects and blunt trauma were reported. Most techniques (85.2%) were perceived to be dangerous, including methods recommended by the World Health Organization. A majority (61.4%) supported Brazil's existing law permitting abortion in the case of rape. There was no association between gender, age, sexual debut, parental education or socioeconomic status and attitudes toward legal abortion. However, students at the magnet school supported twice as many legal indications (2.7, SE.27) suggesting a likely role of peers and/or educators in shaping abortion views. CONCLUSIONS: Abortion knowledge and attitudes are not driven simply by age, religion or class, but rather a complex interplay that includes both social spaces and gender. Prevention of abortion morbidity and mortality among adolescents requires comprehensive sexuality and reproductive health education that includes factual distinctions between safe and unsafe abortion methods.

Abortion and politics in Nicaragua: the women's movement in the debate on the Abortion Law Reform 1999-2002.

This paper analyses discussion on a proposed reform to the abortion law in Nicaragua between 1999 and 2002, as a struggle between different actors - politicians, religious leaders, doctors and feminists - over the meaning of abortion, motherhood and sexuality, and ultimately the value of women's lives. It shows how the interplay of gender discourses and political practices shaped the process of discussion: on one hand by making a broad alliance against abortion possible, on the other by highlighting the contradictory role of the women's movement in this discussion, between a dominant leadership and a low mobilizing capacity. The paper argues for the need of an inwards oriented process within the women's movement, that departs from the recognition of the personal issues at stake for women in order to break the silence surrounding abortion, such as prevailing feelings of fear and guilt. This entails recognition of the limits of the liberal feminist claim to 'abortion as a free choice', as a discourse of rights that is disconnected from the everyday life conditions and constraints under which women make choices and develop their notions of rights.

Mal tratar de hacer pareja: concepciones y prácticas en la lucha contra la violencia hacía la mujer / Wrong to try to make even: conceptions and practical in the fight against the violence made the woman

El documento proporciona los aporte y debates del taller sobre "Marcos teóricos metodológicos del trabajo en violencia" realizado en San Salvador, los temas abordados en el taller fueron: La lucha contra la violencia hacía la mujer; La violencia como expresión de las relaciones de poder: unbnenfoque desde el movimiento de mujeres; Nudos y desafíos en nuestra práctica y en nuestro discurso; Mal tratar de hacer Pareja; La subjetividad de las mujeres en las relaciones violentas; desde nuestra práctica