Re: Abortion question - Cote d'Ivoire 2012 [message #14615 is a reply to message #13939] |
Sun, 22 April 2018 17:37  |
kingx025
Messages: 95 Registered: August 2016 Location: Minneapolis. Minnesota
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One reason that reported rates for induced abortion may be low in many African countries is that abortion is not legal. In such a setting, there may be considerable pressure on women to reclassify an induced abortion in some other way--even in her own mind--as some other act, such as a miscarriage or a way of bringing on "blocked" menstruation. You might consider also reporting the numbers for "terminated pregnancies" rather than separately identifying induced abortions---even if the data allows you to do such separate calculations--as at least an alternative measure/upper bound estimate. I see you already acknowledge social desirability bias issues in your message, so what I'm saying here isn't new to you.
This topic is not my own area of specialization but I have heard presentations by researchers in this area who made the point about underreporting and misreporting in a setting where abortion is not legal.
Miriam King
Dr. Miriam King
IPUMS-DHS Project Manager (www.idhsdata.org)
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