Single and repeated elective abortions in Japan: a psychosocial study

Despite its social, legal and medical importance, termination of pregnancy (TOP) (induced abortion) has rarely been the focus of psychosocial research. Of a total of 1329 women who consecutively attended the antenatal clinic of a general hospital in Japan, 635 were expecting their first baby. Of these 635 women, 103 (16.2%) had experienced TOP once previously (first aborters), while 47 (7.4%) had experienced TOP two or more times (repeated aborters). Discriminant function analysis was performed using psychosocial variables found to be significantly associated with either first abortion or repeated abortion in bivariate analyses. This revealed that both first and repeated aborters could be predicted by smoking habits and an unwanted current pregnancy while the repeated aborters appear to differ from first aborters in having a longer pre-marital dating period, non-arranged marriages, smoking habits, early maternal loss experience or a low level of maternal care during childhood. These findings suggest that both the frequency of abortion and its repetition have psychosocial origins.