{"title":"Reproductive Coercion and Abortion Care: Care and Surveillance in Abortion Decision-Making in North Carolina, USA.","authors":"Whitney Arey","doi":"10.1080/01459740.2025.2471926","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this article, I explore connections of reproductive coercion and surveillance care through ethnographic research conducted at two independent abortion clinics in North Carolina from 2018 to 2019. Examining the lived experiences of those who seek abortion care shows how patients navigate surveillance during the clinical encounter to receive care. Patients experiencing reproductive coercion often need to maintain existing social ties, involving the providers as mediators to ensure their preferred outcome. Because patients may only receive care if they express an autonomous decision for abortion, providers often observe and negotiate specific social-relational cues, draw-specific ethical conclusions about patient autonomy, and act accordingly.</p>","PeriodicalId":47460,"journal":{"name":"Medical Anthropology","volume":" ","pages":"1-15"},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2025-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Medical Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2025.2471926","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this article, I explore connections of reproductive coercion and surveillance care through ethnographic research conducted at two independent abortion clinics in North Carolina from 2018 to 2019. Examining the lived experiences of those who seek abortion care shows how patients navigate surveillance during the clinical encounter to receive care. Patients experiencing reproductive coercion often need to maintain existing social ties, involving the providers as mediators to ensure their preferred outcome. Because patients may only receive care if they express an autonomous decision for abortion, providers often observe and negotiate specific social-relational cues, draw-specific ethical conclusions about patient autonomy, and act accordingly.
期刊介绍:
Medical Anthropology provides a global forum for scholarly articles on the social patterns of ill-health and disease transmission, and experiences of and knowledge about health, illness and wellbeing. These include the nature, organization and movement of peoples, technologies and treatments, and how inequalities pattern access to these. Articles published in the journal showcase the theoretical sophistication, methodological soundness and ethnographic richness of contemporary medical anthropology. Through the publication of empirical articles and editorials, we encourage our authors and readers to engage critically with the key debates of our time. Medical Anthropology invites manuscripts on a wide range of topics, reflecting the diversity and the expanding interests and concerns of researchers in the field.