Induced abortion and consciousness objection: an explorative analysis of gynecologists’ narratives

In Italy gynecologists can claim consciousness objection when requested to provide abortion; as described
by the latest data analysis, 70% of them decide to not provide this kind of medical procedure. Psycholog-
ical and sociological research studies about abortion are usually related to the construct of “abortion
stigma” and they are mostly focused on women’s experiences rather than on providers’ ones. The present
study tries to understand the subjective perspective of physicians in relation to abortion and to conscious-
ness objection to better understand the emotional dynamics taking part in their workplace and job’s emo-
tional experience. Structured interviews were administered to 19 gynecologists and trainees in Gynecol-
ogy to explore their feelings connected to their work with a focus on voluntary interruption of pregnancy
and the choice of being or not an objector. Since it is an exploratory study, we decided to employ Emo-
tional Text Analysis to analyze the entire textual corpus of interviews to explore their affective symboli-
zation. Statistical multidimensional analyses were conducted to detect thematic domains (clusters) and
latent factors organizing the contraposition between them, considered as a mirror of emotional dynamics
part of the context. We found out five clusters, referring to different emotional dimensions: the represen-
tation of undesired pregnancy as something unmanageable; the role of consciousness objection in defining
physicians’ professional identities; the role of manhood power on women’s pregnancy; the emotional
detachment needed to deal with abortion and the representation of consciousness objection as an instru-
ment of power. All the results are discussed based on the previous literature.