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      The discourses on induced abortion in Ugandan daily newspapers: a discourse analysis

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          Abstract

          Background

          Ugandan law prohibits abortion under all circumstances except where there is a risk for the woman’s life. However, it has been estimated that over 250 000 illegal abortions are being performed in the country yearly. Many of these abortions are carried out under unsafe conditions, being one of the most common reasons behind the nearly 5000 maternal deaths per year in Uganda. Little research has been conducted in relation to societal views on abortion within the Ugandan society. This study aims to analyze the discourse on abortion as expressed in the two main daily Ugandan newspapers.

          Method

          The conceptual content of 59 articles on abortion between years 2006–2012, from the two main daily English-speaking newspapers in Uganda, was studied using principles from critical discourse analysis.

          Results

          A religious discourse and a human rights discourse, together with medical and legal sub discourses frame the subject of abortion in Uganda, with consequences for who is portrayed as a victim and who is to blame for abortions taking place. It shows the strong presence of the Catholic Church within the medial debate on abortion. The results also demonstrate the absence of medial statements related to abortion made by political stakeholders.

          Conclusions

          The Catholic Church has a strong position within the Ugandan society and their stance on abortion tends to have great influence on the way other actors and their activities are presented within the media, as well as how stakeholders choose to convey their message, or choose not to publicly debate the issue in question at all. To decrease the number of maternal deaths, we highlight the need for a more inclusive and varied debate that problematizes the current situation, especially from a gender perspective.

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          Most cited references39

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          The social psychology of stigma.

          This chapter addresses the psychological effects of social stigma. Stigma directly affects the stigmatized via mechanisms of discrimination, expectancy confirmation, and automatic stereotype activation, and indirectly via threats to personal and social identity. We review and organize recent theory and empirical research within an identity threat model of stigma. This model posits that situational cues, collective representations of one's stigma status, and personal beliefs and motives shape appraisals of the significance of stigma-relevant situations for well-being. Identity threat results when stigma-relevant stressors are appraised as potentially harmful to one's social identity and as exceeding one's coping resources. Identity threat creates involuntary stress responses and motivates attempts at threat reduction through coping strategies. Stress responses and coping efforts affect important outcomes such as self-esteem, academic achievement, and health. Identity threat perspectives help to explain the tremendous variability across people, groups, and situations in responses to stigma.
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            Abortion as stigma: cognitive and emotional implications of concealment.

            This study examined the stigma of abortion and psychological implications of concealment among 442 women followed for 2 years from the day of their abortion. As predicted, women who felt stigmatized by abortion were more likely to feel a need to keep it a secret from family and friends. Secrecy was related positively to suppressing thoughts of the abortion and negatively to disclosing abortion-related emotions to others. Greater thought suppression was associated with experiencing more intrusive thoughts of the abortion. Both suppression and intrusive thoughts, in turn, were positively related to increases in psychological distress over time. Emotional disclosure moderated the association between intrusive thoughts and distress. Disclosure was associated with decreases in distress among women experiencing intrusive thoughts of their abortion, but was unrelated to distress among women not experiencing intrusive thoughts.
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              Women, Policy and Politics: The Construction of Policy Problems

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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                sofia.larsson@rkh.se
                miriam.eliasson@ki.se
                mkl@du.se
                elisabeth.faxelid@ki.se
                atuyambe@musph.ac.ug
                sara.fritzell@ki.se
                Journal
                Reprod Health
                Reprod Health
                Reproductive Health
                BioMed Central (London )
                1742-4755
                25 June 2015
                25 June 2015
                2015
                : 12
                : 58
                Affiliations
                [ ]Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 29 Solna, Sweden
                [ ]School of Health and Social Sciences, Dalarna University, 791 88 Falun, Sweden
                [ ]Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, Karolinska Institutet, SE-171 29 Solna, Sweden
                [ ]Department of Community Health and Behavioural Sciences, Makerere University School of Public Health, P.O.Box 7072, Kampala, Uganda
                [ ]The Swedish Red Cross University College, Box 55676, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden
                Article
                49
                10.1186/s12978-015-0049-0
                4481262
                26108479
                7d903cb3-fa99-4c8c-86f4-f88f07b131d9
                © Larsson et al. 2015

                This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 28 August 2014
                : 12 June 2015
                Categories
                Research
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2015

                Obstetrics & Gynecology
                abortion,discourse,gender,girls,health,law,pregnancy,religion,stigma,uganda,women
                Obstetrics & Gynecology
                abortion, discourse, gender, girls, health, law, pregnancy, religion, stigma, uganda, women

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