‘We view that as contraceptive failure’: Containing the ‘multiplicity’ of contraception and abortion within Scottish reproductive healthcare

Abstract

Within contemporary Scottish policy guidance, abortion is routinely configured as evidence of a resolvable problem with the healthcare provision of contraception. This article draws on 42 semi-structured interviews with Scottish health professionals conducted during 2007–2008, in order to explore how, and in what form, realities of contraception/abortion are sustained within abortion practice. In addition to providing empirical insights concerning this sociologically neglected aspect of reproductive healthcare, it demonstrates how a novel conceptual approach could be used to develop existing social scientific analyses of the provision of techniques of fertility prevention. Science and Technology Studies (STS) has highlighted the importance of studying the complex socio-material practices through which realities are enacted (or ‘performed’). Mobilising this insight, my analysis illustrates the complex socio-material work required to enact abortion as evidence of a ‘problem’ with contraception that is resolvable within the healthcare consultation. This work, I argue, renders visible the ontologically ‘multiple’ ( Mol, 2002) nature of contraception/abortion, with important implications for both social science and policy approaches to these techniques of fertility prevention.

Highlights

► Analysis of Scottish health professionals' accounts of providing contraceptive advice during consultations about abortion. ► Draws on STS theory to conceptualise ‘contraception’ and ‘abortion’ as realities enacted through practice. ► Explores how contraception/abortion realities are enacted through Scottish abortion consultations. ► Illustrates the work involved in aligning these realities with the contraception/abortion enacted through policy.