Measuring Abortion Stigma

Introduction: There is no agreed upon definition of abortion stigma and no standard tool to measure the phenomenon. We aim to define abortion stigma and develop and validate a scale to measure abortion stigma among US women who have had an abortion.

Methods: This research has four phases: 1. Tool Development- Compile a comprehensive list of questions measuring various dimensions of abortion stigma. 2. Cognitive interviews- Conduct in-person interviews with 20 women to examine their response formulation. 3. Testing and internal validation- Conduct factor analysis on responses to the revised scale to define the minimum comprehensive set of items. 4. External Validation- Validate the final scale within our larger Turnaway Study to assess the relationship between abortion stigma and women's wellbeing.

Results: Based on our extensive review of the academic and programmatic literature on abortion and health-related stigmas, we defined abortion stigma as a negative label applied to a woman who has had an abortion which marks her as tainted or inferior to the ideals of womanhood. We found that abortion stigma occupies the following domains: anticipated stigma, perception of community norms, experienced stigma, internalized stigma, and stigma management. Drawing upon theory we are developing, refining and validating a scale to measure each domain of abortion stigma. We will report on Phases 1-3 of our study.

Conclusion: Abortion stigma may affect women's well-being. A validated abortion stigma scale can reveal how coping after an abortion is affected by stigma and identify women in need of social support.