Orchestrating moral bearability in the clinical management of second-trimester selective abortion

Bibliographic Data

ID4591290
AuthorsLaura Louise Heinsen (0000-0001-9832-7869, Aalborg University, corresponding author), Camilla Bruheim (University College Copenhagen), Stine Willum Adrian (0000-0002-1481-4318, Aalborg University)
Year2023
Volume338
Pages116306
Publication date2023-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Science & Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347
PublisherElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116306
PMID39491864
OpenAlexW4387542293
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited43

In present-day Denmark, second-trimester selective abortion has become a regular medical event, which has turned selective abortion care into a routinized task for health staff. In this article, we explore what forms of care practices abortion providers in Danish public hospitals engage in. Using in-depth interviews, medical documents and social media data, we show that at the center of selective abortion care provision is not only securing safe medical outcomes, but moral labor orientated towards achieving a morally manageable medical event, permeating institutionally developed clinical guidelines, relational face-to-face care, and ideologically driven encouragement of parental-fetal attachment through the use of material objects and visibility practices. We propose to view these entangled realms of practices as aiming towards generating what we term "moral bearability", meaning that selective abortion care is orchestrated in particular ways to make the abortion, and the implied making and handling of death, simultaneously bearable for couples and health staff

Abortion · Biology · Fetus · Gynecology · Obstetrics · Pregnancy · Second trimester · Sociology · Ethics in medical practice · Medicine · Reproductive Health and Contraception · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Genetics