University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-1998 Experiencing Abortion: A Phenomenological Investigation Kathryn Rea Smith University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Smith, Kathryn Rea, "Experiencing Abortion: A Phenomenological Investigation. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1998. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2514 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kathryn Rea Smith entitled "Experiencing Abortion: A Phenomenological Investigation." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Mark Hector, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Howard Pollio, Patricia Droppleman, Sandra Thomas Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council : I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Kathryn Rea Smith entitled "Experiencing Abortion: A Phenomenological Investigation." I have examined the final copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Mark Hector, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: zki£ {/� Accepted for the Council: Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of The Graduate School EXPERIENCING ABORTION: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Kathryn Rea Smith May 1998 Copyright ° Kathrvn Rea Smith, 1998 All rights reserved 11 DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my husband and dearest friend. MichaeL without whose constant love and support this would not have been possible. 111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am enormously grateful to the women who participated in this project for giving so generously of their time and for so courageously sharing their stories. They truly made this project a mutual one by putting so much of themselves into it. The opportunity to talk with them was invaluable. Their remarkable stories inspired me to persevere during the more challenging stages of this research. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the members of my doctoral committee for allowing me to pursue a personally meaningful research topic in a manner that has complimented my development as a psychologist. I would like to thank my chairman , Dr. Mark Hector, for his support and for the many enjoyable conversations we have shared during my years in graduate school. I am grateful to Dr. Sandra Thomas and Dr. Patricia Droppleman for their encouragement, advice, and ability to tie research results to practice. I would like to particularly thank Dr. Howard Pollio for his valuable insights and contributions during all phases of data analysis. I would also like to thank the members of his Wednesday evening Phenomenology Research Group for providing a supportive and stimulating environment within which to consider the findings of this research. I would like to thank my family, particularly my mother and father. Their love and enthusiastic encouragement, laughter, and prayers have helped me to persevere through difficult times and to keep my goals in perspective. I would also like to thank Elizabeth Hansen for being such a supportive presence in my life. Several friends -­ Renee Steele, Marsha Burdette, Angelyn Bales, and Eliza Dean -- have enriched my life tremendously. I am especially grateful for the nurturance and sustenance they provided during the data analysis and writing phases of my dissertation. Finally, I am profoundly grateful to my husband, Michael, wh<1 has always listened to and valued JV my ideas and encouraged me to pursue my dreams. I thank him for his love and for the many sacrifices he has made for me throughout the last seven years. ABSTRACT This project provided a description of women's experience of abortion. In­ depth, non-directive interviews were conducted with ten adult women in which they were asked to describe what stood out for them about their experience of abortion. Transcribed interviews constituted the raw data. and a method informed by hermeneutic analysis was used for purposes of describing the thematic structure of the experience. Findings indicated that this structure was defined by four themes: (1) Wrong and Right Aspects; (2) Issues of Life and Death; (3) Absence or Presence of Support; and (4) A Hard Thing to Go Through. These themes were always contextualized by the two larger experiential grounds of (1) Who I Am (Who I was, Who I Expect to Be ) and (2) Others. The ground of "Who I Am " reflected participants' sense of personal identity and included self-ascribed attributes, values and beliefs, and future aspirations. The ground of "Others" consisted of the socio-cultural context. and included messages about abortion from family. religion, and politics. It also included an awareness of other women who had abortions. and descriptions of the relationship within which the pregnancy occurred. The first theme. Wrong and Right Aspects, captured participants' awareness of the moral dimensions of their abortion experience . For most of the women, the idea of abortion as wrong initially dominated their perspective; this view, however, was invariably attenuated by the knowledge that abortion was the right choice at this time. The second theme, Issues of Life and Death, reflected participants' experience of abortion as an existential matter. The third theme. Absence or Presence of Support. described the participants' awareness of the need for support in relation to the abortion experience. This theme was discussed in terms of the woman's relationship with herself. her anticipations of responses from others. and in the actual responses she Vl received from others. The fourth theme, A Hard Thing to Go Through, conveyed participants' awareness of the abortion experience as difficult to endure. This theme best captured the experiential tone of the abortion experience as a whole for most participants. Vll TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 4 Overview 4 Quantitative Studies of Abortion 6 Psychological and Psychosocial Antecedents of Abortion 6 Psychological Consequences of Abortion 7 Normative Responses to Abortion 10 Negative Responses to Abortion: Risk Factors 12 Abortion as a Trauma and Loss 13 Qualitative Studies of Abortion 17 Methodological Critique of Prior Research and Implications for the Current Project 24 III. METHOD 27 7'7 Introduction _, Part One: Methodological and Epistemological Concerns 27 '"�'7 Tenets of Existential-Phenomenological Psychology _, Issues Related to Data Collection 29 "'7 Issues Central to Data Analysis .), Evaluation of E-P Psychology Research Results 40 Part Two: Data Collection and Analysis 43 Data Collection 43 Bracketing 44 Conducting a Pilot Interview 49 Selecting Participants 49 Interviewing 50 Data Analysis 51 -') Making a Transcript ) ""' Looking for Themes within Transcripts 52 Presenting Transcripts to an Interpretive Research Group 53 Looking for Structure Across Transcripts 54 Cataloging Significant Statements 55 Verifying Structure with Participants 56 Writing a Comprehensive Description 56 !V. RESULTS 57 Introduction 57 Description of the Participants 57 Ideographic Analysis: Narrative Summaries 59 Phenomenological Analysis 59 vm CHAPTER PAGE Grounds 60 Who I Am (Who I Was, Who I Expect to Be) 60 Personal Attributes 61 Values and Beliefs 61 Future Aspirations 62 Others 62 Themes 67 Wrong and Right Aspects ("Wrong/Right'') 67 Changes in "Wrong/Right" 69 Issues of Life and Death ("Life/Death") 70 Changes in "Life/Death" 74 Absence or Presence of Support ("Support") 76 Lack of Self-Support for Pregnancy 76 Lack of Self-Support for Relationship 77 Lack of Self-Support for Lifestyle 77 Unsupportive Responses 78 Supportive Responses 79 Changes in "Support" 80 Increased Self-Support for Birth Control Usage 80 Increased Self-Support for RelatiOnship Choices 81 Increased Self-Support for Taking a New Path 81 A Hard Thing to Go Through 83 Changes in "A Hard Thing to Go Through" 85 "Who I Am . '' Revisited 87 Changes in "Who I Am•· 87 Thematic Structure of the Experience of Abortion 88 V. DISCUSSIOK 95 Major Findings: The Experience of Abortion 95 The Experiential Grounds 95 Who I Am (Who I Was, Who I Expect to Be) 95 Others 98 Themes 101 Wrong and Right Aspects 101 Issues of Life and Death 103 Absence or Presence of Support 105 A Hard Thing to Go Through 108 Evaluation of the Procedure 109 Implications for Mental Health Professionals 112 REFERENCES 117 IX CHAPTER PAGE APPENDICES 127 VITA 163 X CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION In the twenty-five years since the legalization of abortion in the United States, approximately 1.5 million abortions have been