ABSTRACT
It is true that this problem has been the subject of so-called scientific studies: there are any number of publications on its legal, sociological and psychological aspects, but their subtitles make it immediately clear that their main concern is prevention. A pregnant woman who sees her immediate future as holding an abortion instead of a child will find little reason to read them. Statistical comparisons and learned speculations on the reasons why abortion is more or less frequent in certain societies and for certain social classes can be of no interest in such a moment, any more than a woman who is happily pregnant might be likely to take an interest in studies on how to overcome sterility. She would like to know something about the nature of her own situation, something about the experience she is soon to undergo. The findings of specialized studies that might be interesting and useful for her-studies, for example, on the psychological effects of abortion (see Appendix I)—are hard to find. They circulate only in professional journals, or the books in which they appear are out of print; and they were written to be read by specialists, in an idiom that many women will experience as an obstacle.
