On Why Abortion Rates Vary
A Geographical Examination of the Supply of and Demand for Abortion Services in the United States in 1988 , by Patricia Gober
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8375815 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Kirby (0000-0002-3489-401X, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, corresponding author), Russell S Kirby |
| Year | 1995 |
| Volume | 85 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 581-585 |
| Publication date | 1995-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Annals of the Association of American Geographers (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-5608 • E-ISSN: 1467-8306 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-8306.1995.tb01814.x |
| OpenAlex | W2055021730 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
A lIthough there has been a sub-specialty of geography known as medical geography for many years, its practitioners have tended to shy away from the more controversial socio-political issues concerning health care, and rarely publish their work in the major geography, public health, or medical journals. Studies involving perinatal health conducted by geographers are also quite rare, irrespective of the venue in which they appear. It was therefore with great anticipation that I awaited the publication of Patricia Gober's article Why Abortion Rates Vary: A Geographical Examination of the Supply of and Demand for Abortion Services in the United States in 1988 (Gober 1994). Having now read this paper, I feel compelled to offer some comments by way of linkage with researchers in the fields of biometry, perinatal epidemiology, demography, spatial statistics, and related fields who might share some or all of my concerns. There is much of value in Gober's paper, and herein lies the predicament for the casual audience. An understanding of the historical context within which abortion services have been sought, provided, legislated, regulated, and moralized is a prerequisite to the careful study of geographic factors in the supply of and demand for these services. Gober provides a workmanlike overview, chronicling the history of the preand post-Roe v. Wade eras. There are two significant omissions from this discussion. First, information on trends in maternal and reproductive mortality associated with these procedures before and after the landmark Supreme Court decision should be added (Cates 1984; Forrest and Henshaw 1993). Second, data on how changes in state laws affect abortion rates are available; this information might help the reader to understand the spatial patterns described and analyzed later in the paper (Korenbrot et al. 1990). If one overlooks the comments concerning reliability and validity of data sources below, the discussion of spatial patterns of occurrence and residence-based abortion rates is also a useful contribution which deserves a wider audience. Gober is also to be commended for her courage in addressing one of the most highly charged topics on the contemporary American scene. I agree with Gober that, from the perspective of the geographer, l[o]ur mission ... is to identify the geographic variations in abortion rates, to seek their causes, and to predict their change under a variety of potential scenarios (Gober 1994:248). Where I differ is in my ability to accept the spatial and statistical analyses presented in this paper as a useful first step in this process. There are significant problems with the data sources, construction of dependent variables, selection of independent variables, and choice of statistical methods for the ecological analysis which collectively render the conclusions of Gober's study highly problematic
Abortion · Casual · Context (archaeology) · Demographic economics · Economics · Geography · Health care · Political science · Population · Pregnancy · Sociology · Value (mathematics) · Census and Population Estimation · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Demography · Law · Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions
| Highly cited | No |
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