Women-centred abortion care: Legitimising a disenfranchised aspect of healthcare
Te mahi whakatahe hāngai ki te wahine: Te whakaahua i te reo o tētahi wāhanga wahangū o te taurima hauora
Chris Hannah, RN, RM, BA, MPH, MCouns, Clinical Manager, Taiarawhiti DHB, Gisborne, NZ
Catherine Cook, RN, RM, PG Cert TT, MCouns, PhD, Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing, Massey University, Albany, NZ
Tiziana Manea, RN, RM, MA, MCouns, Clinical Nurse Specialist, Taiarawhiti DHB, Gisborne, NZ
Reference: Hannah, C., Cook, C., & Manea, T. (2019). Women-centred abortion care: Legitimising a disenfranchised aspect of healthcare [Editorial]. Nursing Praxis in New Zealand, 35(2), 4-6. https://doi.org/10.36951/NgPxNZ.2019.005
Abstract:
In her editorial, Helen Rook (2018) drew our collective attention to the importance of nurses having the moral courage to speak up about contentious issues, heeding the International Council of Nurses latest campaign for us to have a voice. In this editorial, the authors, all with years immersed in women’s health service delivery and/or research, respond to this call, as we draw attention to the significance of a nursing and midwifery voice in the area of women’s unplanned pregnancy and abortion care. This sensitive and controversial area of care to date has been primarily medically driven. We offer a vision of nursing and midwifery-led care, and a women-centred approach focused on women’s lived experience – what has been called a provoice approach (Manninen, 2013) - where the aim is for women’s experiences not to get lost in the political and philosophical ‘noise’ of pro and antiabortion debates.