title: Politics, policies, pronatalism, and practice: availability and accessibility of abortion and reproductive health services in Turkey.
abstract: Turkey has maintained liberal contraception and abortion policies since the 1980s. In 2012, the government proposed to restrict abortion; a bill limiting abortion was later drafted but never passed into law. Since the proposed restriction, women have reported difficulty accessing abortion services across Turkey. We aimed to better understand the current availability of abortion and reproductive health services in Istanbul and explore whether access to services has changed since 2012. In 2015, we completed 14 in-depth interviews with women and 11 semi-structured interviews with key informants. We transcribed all interviews and completed content and thematic analyses of the data. Key informants had good knowledge about the political discourse and the current abortion law. In contrast, women were familiar with the political discourse but had mixed information about the current status of abortion and were unsure about the legality of their own abortions. There was consensus that access to services has become more limited in the last five years due to the political climate, thus advocacy to prioritize reproductive health services, and abortion care in particular, in the public health system are needed.
authors.affiliation: Former graduate student, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Katrina A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: MacFarlane
authors.affiliation: Director, Gender and Women's Studies Research Center, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Mary Lou
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: O'Neil
authors.affiliation: Independent Consultant, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Deniz
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tekdemir
authors.affiliation: Independent Consultant, Istanbul, Turkey.
authors.forename: Elvin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Çetin
authors.affiliation: PhD Candidate, School of Translation and Interpretation, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada.
authors.forename: Barış
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bilgen
authors.affiliation: Endowed Chair in Women's Health Research & Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada. Electronic address: angel.foster@uottawa.ca.
authors.forename: Angel M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Foster
mesh_terms: D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D000328:Adult; D016656:Family Planning Policy; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006291:Health Policy; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D011057:Politics; D011247:Pregnancy; D034121:Reproductive Health Services; D014421:Turkey; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Middle East and North Africa; Turkey; abortion; contraception