Abortion counselling controversies and the precarious role of social work: Research and reflections from Aotearoa New Zealand
Keywords:
Abortion counselling, social work, controversy, boundary objectAbstract
INTRODUCTION: This article presents debates and controversies about counselling within abortion provision in Aotearoa New Zealand. Formal and informal counselling networks are described, where the role of social workers as providers of counselling services is precarious. Insights consider how service users may be more holistically supported when accessing abortion care.
METHODS: Drawing on findings from a broader qualitative research project involving interviews, formal and informal observation of practices, and analysis of service documentation, the concept of boundary objects by Star and Griesemer (1989) is used to account for diverse abortion counselling practices. Revisiting these findings in the context of current abortion legislation and developments, a Reproductive Justice (RJ) lens is used to inform the implications for service users and social work practice.
FINDINGS: Efforts within legislation, policy, and practice guidelines to standardise abortion counselling have not prevented different versions of counselling from being enacted by social workers, counsellors, nurses, and other pregnancy-related professionals, resulting in the contestation of counselling. Participant accounts and observations revealed that multiple disciplines offer counselling practices while social work remains poorly integrated into service provision.
CONCLUSION: This article employs the concept of boundary objects to account for how variations of counselling have been enacted and disputed. The addition of a reproductive justice (RJ) lens with its attention to social justice is used to appreciate recent advances in access to abortion services alongside arguing for enriched care practices and the value of social work in supporting the integrated well-being and agency of service users.
References
Abortion Supervisory Committee. (1998). Standards of practice for the provision of counselling. Counselling Advisory Committee, April 1998.
Abortion Supervisory Committee. (2018). Standards of care for women requesting abortion in Aotearoa New Zealand: Report of a Standards Committee to the Abortion Supervisory Committee. https://www.environmentcourt.govt.nz/assets/Standards-of-Care-2018.pdf
Abortion Supervisory Committee. (2020). Report of the Abortion Supervisory Committee for 2020 presented to the House of Representatives pursuant to Section 39 of the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977. [Parliamentary Rept.]. New Zealand Parliament. https:// www.justice.govt.nz/assets/ASC-Annual-Report-2020.pdf
Allanson, S. (2007). Pregnancy/abortion counselling: False providers, mandatory counselling. Women Against Violence: An Australian Feminist Journal (19), 5–9. https:// search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.728436785115575
Bassett, I. C. (2001). Liability of health professionals for a breach of the abortion law of New Zealand. The New Zealand Medical Journal, 114(1145), 557–558.
Beddoe, L. (2022). Reproductive justice, abortion rights and social work. Critical and Radical Social Work, 10(1), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.1332/204986021X16355170868404
Booysen, P., & Staniforth, B. (2017). Counselling in social work: A legitimate role? Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 29(1), 16–27. https://doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol29iss1id214
Bowker, G .C., & Star, S. L. (1990). Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. MIT Press.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Bryant, A. G., & Swartz, J. J. (2018). Why crisis pregnancy centers are legal but unethical. AMA Journal of Ethics 20(3), 269–277. https://doi.org/10.1001/journalofethics.2 018.20.3.pfor1-1803
Cannold L. (2002). Understanding and responding to anti- choice women-centred strategies. Reproductive health matters, 10(19), 171–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0968- 8080(02)00011-3
Chiweshe, M., Mavuso, J., & Macleod, C. (2017). Reproductive justice in context: South African and Zimbabwean women’s narratives of their abortion decision. Feminism & Psychology, 27(2), 203– 224. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517699234
Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977 (Parliamentary Counsel Office of New Zealand. 1977). Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act 1977 No 112 (as at 01 July 2022), Public Act Contents – New Zealand Legislation
Dixon, A. (2012). Authorisation of abortion for a “serious danger to mental health”: Would the practice stand up to the judicial test? Victoria University of Wellington Law Review, 43(2), 289–320.
Hannah, C., Cook, C., & Manea, T. (2019, July 1). Women- centred abortion care: Legitimising a disenfranchised aspect of healthcare. Nursing Praxis in Aotearoa New Zealand. https://doi.org/10.36951/NgPxNZ.2019.005
Hoggart, L. (2015). Abortion counselling in Britain: Understanding the controversy. Sociology Compass, 9(5), 365-378. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12256.
Kirk, S., Beddoe, L., & Chinnery, S. A. (2018). An investigation of the nature of termination of pregnancy counselling within the current system of licensed facilities. Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 30(3), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol30iss3id511
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/0191622893.001.0001
Law, J. (2004). After method: Mess in social science research. Routledge.
Le Grice, J. (2014). Māori and reproduction, sexuality education, maternity, and abortion [Doctoral thesis, The University of Auckland]. https://researchspace.auckland. ac.nz/handle/2292/23730
Le Grice, J. S., & Braun, V. (2017). Indigenous (Māori) perspectives on abortion in New Zealand. Feminism & Psychology, 27(2), 144–162. https://doi. org/10.1177/0959353517701491
Liamputtong, P. (2009). Qualitative data analysis: Conceptual and practical considerations. Health Promotion Journal of Australia 20(2). https://doi.org/10.1071/HE09133
Macfarlane, E., Stitely, M., & Paterson, H. (2023). What skills do New Zealand clinicians have to provide first trimester abortion in primary care and are they willing? Sexual & Reproductive Healthcare, 35, 100810. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.srhc.2022.100810
Marecek, J., Macleod, C., & Hoggart, L. (2017). Abortion embedded and embodied in social relations: Challenges for feminist psychology. Feminism & Psychology, 27(2), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517704877
Mavuso, J., Macleod, C., & du Toit, R. (2023). Directive counselling undermines “safe” abortion. In T. Morison & J. Mavuso (Eds.) Sexual and reproductive justice: From the margins to the centre (pp 247-266). Lexington Books.
Meadows, L. (2016). Controversies, instabilities and (re) configurations: an actor-network account of abortion in Christchurch, New Zealand. http://dx.doi.org/10.26021/4988
Ministry of Health. (2022). Standard for abortion counselling in Aotearoa New Zealand. https://www.health.govt.nz/ system/files/documents/publications/final_standard_for_ abortion_counselling_28_july_v2.pdf
Ministry of Health. (2023). Abortion Services Aotearoa New Zealand: Annual report 2023. Ratonga Whakatahe i Aotearoa | Abortion Services Aotearoa New Zealand. https://www.health.govt.nz/publication/ratonga-whakatahe-i-aotearoa-abortion-services-aotearoa-new-zealand-annual-report-2023
Murphy, E., & Dingwall, R. (2003). Qualitative methods and health policy research (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi. org/10.4324/9781315127873
Ross, L. (2007). What is reproductive justice? In SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective and the Pro-Choice Public Education Project (Eds.), Reproductive justice briefing book: A primer on reproductive justice and social change (pp. 4–5). http://www.protectchoice.org/downloads/ Reproductive%20Justice%20Briefing%20Book.pdf,
Ross, L. J. (2017). Reproductive justice as intersectional feminist activism. Souls, 19(3), 286–314. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/10999949.2017.1389634
Ross, L., & Solinger, R. (2017). Reproductive justice: An introduction. University of California Press.
Rudrum, S. (2022). Student encounters with a campus crisis pregnancy centre: Choice, reproductive
justice and sexual and reproductive health supports. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 47(1), 53-73 https://doi. org/10.29173/cjs29754
Simonds, W. (1996). Abortion at work: ideology and practice in a feminist clinic. Rutgers University Press.
Standards Committee. (2018). Standards of Care for Women Requesting Abortion in Aotearoa New Zealand, https:// www.environmentcourt.govt.nz/assets/Standards-of-Care-2018.pdf
Star, S. L. (1988). The structure of ill-structured solutions: Boundary objects and heterogeneous distributed problem solving. In Huhns, M. and Gasser, L. (Eds.), Readings in distributed artificial intelligence (37- 54). Kaufman. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-55860-092-8.50006-X
Star, S. L. (1991). Power, technology and the phenomenon of conventions: On being allergic to onions. In Law,
J. (Ed), A sociology of monsters: essays on power, technology and domination (26-56). Routledge
Star, S. L. (2010). This is not a boundary object: Reflections on the origin of a concept. Science, Technology & Human Values, 35(5), 601–617.
Star, S. L., & Griesemer, J. R. (1989). Institutional ecology, “translations” and boundary objects: Amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39. Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420.
Whitcombe, A., & Norton, C. (2020). How social work services are operating in New Zealand following the introduction of the Abortion Legislation Act 2020. [Webinar]. Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers. Webinar: Social Work and the Abortion Legislation Act 2020 (anzasw.nz)
World Health Organization. ( 2015) . Health worker roles in providing safe abortion care and post-abortion contraception.
World Health Organization. https://iris. who.int/handle/10665/181041
World Health Organisation. (2019). Preventing unsafe abortion: Evidence Brief. WHO-RHR-19.21-eng.pdf
Younes, M., Goldblatt Hyatt. E., Witt, H., & Franklin, C. (2021) A call to action: Addressing ambivalence
and promoting advocacy for reproductive rights in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 57(4), 625–635. https://doi.org/10.1080/1043 7797.2021.1895930
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
By completing the online submission process, you confirm you accept this agreement. The following is the entire agreement between you and the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) and it may be modified only in writing.
You and any co-authors
If you are completing this agreement on behalf of co-authors, you confirm that you are acting on their behalf with their knowledge.
First publication
By submitting the work you are:
- granting the ANZASW the right of first publication of this work;
- confirming that the work is original; and
- confirming that the work has not been published in any other form.
Once published, you are free to use the final, accepted version in any way, as outlined below under Copyright.
Copyright
You assign copyright in the final, accepted version of your article to the ANZASW. You and any co-authors of the article retain the right to be identified as authors of the work.
The ANZASW will publish the final, accepted manuscript under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence allows anyone – including you – to share, copy, distribute, transmit, adapt and make commercial use of the work without needing additional permission, provided appropriate attribution is made to the original author or source.
A human-readable summary of the licence is available from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, which includes a link to the full licence text.
Under this licence you can use the final, published version of the article freely – such as depositing a copy in your institutional research repository, uploading a copy to your profile on an academic networking site or including it in a different publication, such as a collection of articles on a topic or in conference proceedings – provided that original publication in Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work is acknowledged.
This agreement has no effect on any pre-publication versions or elements, which remain entirely yours, and to which we claim no right.
Reviewers hold copyright in their own comments and should not be further copied in any way without their permission.
The copyright of others
If your article includes the copyright material of others (e.g. graphs, diagrams etc.), you confirm that your use either:
- falls within the limits of fair dealing for the purposes of criticism and review or fair use; OR
- that you have gained permission from the rights holder for publication in an open access journal.
