The Choice on Termination Act , No 92 of 1996 determine the circumstances in
which and conditions under which the pregnancy of a woman may be terminated;
believing that termination of pregnancy is not a form of contraception or
population control. The act however grand women permission to terminated
their pregnancies during the first 12 weeks of the gestation period, solely on her
request and without reason. According to the statistics of termination of
pregnancy of the Department of Health in the Free State an enormous increase
in termination of pregnancies were noted after the implementation of the Act, No
92 of 1996.
The believe for the practice of termination of pregnancies was that it should be
done only according to the provisions of the Act, and under no circumstances as
a form of contraception or to rid unwanted pregnancies. The enormous increase
in the statistics of termination of pregnancies might therefore be seen as a
consequence of unwanted pregnancies. The researcher thus decided due to this
observation to launch an investigation to clarify the reasons leading to the
increase in termination of pregnancies.
The aim of the study was to identify the reasons for the high incidence of
termination of pregnancies in the Free State. The objectives of the study was to identify:
1) the possible reasons for unwanted pregnancies
2) the possible reasons for termination of pregnancies.
The researcher used a descriptive design as it provided an accurate portrayal of
the characteristics of a paticular group in a real life situation.
Data was obtained by individual structured interviews directed by the researcher
by using a questionnaire. The participants in the study consisted only of clients
visiting the termination clinics requesting a termination. The data was obtained in
three of the institutions in the Free State rendering termination services. The
instutions was selected purposively, though the participants were conveniently
selected.
The data-analysis was conducted by the Biostatistics department at the
University of the Free State. Explanatory data, namely frequencies and
percentages for categorical variables and medians and percentages for
continuous variables, have been determined. The coding of the questionnaires
was done by the researcher and the data was presented by using tables and
figures.
The researcherâs conclusion is thus that women whom request termination of
pregnancies use their terminations as a form of contraception, which is forbidden
by the Act, No 92 of 1996. The majority of the participants in this study however
named socioeconomic reasons for their decision to have a termination. The
prevention of pregnancy might decrease requests for termination of pregnancies. According to the data-analysis and conclusions, recommendations were made to
increase the incidence of termination of pregnancies. Specific recommendations
regarding the following aspects of the research findings were made:
1) sexual education,
2) the effective use of contraception,
3) the prevention of termination of pregnancies,
3) support of parents and family in the decision to have a termination, and
4) counselling.
Recommendations regarding ongoing research according to the data-analysis
and conclusions were made and focuses primarily on counselling, repeated
termination of pregnancies and the psychological condition of women whom
request termination of pregnancies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufs/oai:etd.uovs.ac.za:etd-08052008-101415 |
| Date | 05 August 2008 |
| Creators | Mei, C R L |
| Contributors | Dr L Roets |
| Publisher | University of the Free State |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | en-uk |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.uovs.ac.za//theses/available/etd-08052008-101415/restricted/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University Free State or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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