Studies in family planning
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Induced abortion is one of the most difficult sociomedical problems facing the Indonesian government. While well-known in traditional society, the practice was discouraged by all Indonesian religious groups, and forbidden by the Dutch colonial authorities. ⋯ Medical and community groups campaigned for a more liberal abortion law to protect legal practitioners and stamp out illegal traditional practices. Their efforts appeared to bear fruit in the draft Health Law, but when the law was passed by the legislature in late 1992, the issue was again clouded by contradictions and inconsistencies.
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In the former Soviet Union, there was a lack of valid and reliable social research on knowledge, attitudes, and practice of contraception. The few available studies have not been published outside the Soviet Union. This article reviews five surveys that were conducted in Moscow and two other cities (Saratov and Tartu) during the period 1976-84. ⋯ The chronic unavailability of reliable contraceptives is one of the main factors of poor family planning. Lack of knowledge and negative opinions about modern contraception also play an important role. Some possibilities for improving the family planning situation in Russia are discussed.
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In 1986, the Demographic and Health Surveys project administered the first six-year calendar history of events that included women's contraceptive use and their reasons for discontinuation in experimental surveys in Peru and the Dominican Republic. In this report the experimental survey from Peru is examined to demonstrate how the calendar data can be used to calculate multiple increment-decrement life table rates of contraceptive discontinuation--including contraceptive failure, method switching, and abandonment of use--and of resumption of method use following discontinuation. ⋯ Women who switch methods do so frequently, and many will return to a method used previously, or move on to a third method. Women who become pregnant after abandoning contraceptive use have similar contraceptive-use patterns to women who experience a contraceptive failure.
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Review Comparative Study
International human rights and women's reproductive health.
Neglect of women's reproductive health, perpetuated by law, is part of a larger, systematic discrimination against women. Laws obstruct women's access to reproductive health services. Laws protective of women's reproductive health are rarely or inadequately implemented. ⋯ Epidemiological evidence and feminist legal methods provide insight into the law's neglect of women's reproductive health and expose long-held beliefs in the law's neutrality that harm women fundamentally. Empirical evidence can be used to evaluate how effectively laws are implemented and whether alternative legal approaches exist that would provide greater protection of individual rights. International human rights treaties, including those discussed in this article, are being applied increasingly to expose how laws that obstruct women's access to reproductive health services violate their basic rights.
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Recent demographic surveys have incorporated a month-by-month calendar for the five-year reference period before the survey for the recording of fertility-related events (sexual unions, contraceptive use, pregnancies, and breastfeeding). In the 1986 survey of Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning in Costa Rica, approximately one-half of the 3,527 women interviewed were administered a questionnaire with traditional fertility and family planning questions; the other half were asked virtually the same questions, but the women's responses were entered in a month-by-month calendar. ⋯ Comparisons of the number of events (live births, pregnancy losses, and contraceptive use) showed that more events were recorded among the women in the calendar group. Significantly less erroneous superposition of events (contraceptive use in the last trimester of pregnancy and hormonal contraceptive use in the first month postpartum) was noted when the calendar was used.