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Changing attitudes towards sex and reproduction are evidenced by the desire to understand their physiological, behavioral, and social aspects. Illicit relationships are condemned, at the same time adolescents get sexual messages from television, movies, and books. In India high moral codes consider adolescent sexuality and the resultant motherhood a disgrace. 100 unwed mainly rural girls who came for medical termination of pregnancy to the Mahatma Gandhi Institution of Medical Sciences Sevagram were interviewed. 88% of the girls did not know the consequences of having sexual relations; 90% did not know anything about contraception and 66% had come in the second trimester. A prospective study of school girls about their knowledge of menstruation, reproductive physiology, and birth control methods showed that 75.1% of girls lacked that knowledge (87.6% of rural girls, as compared to 62.6% of urban girls). The knowledge sources were mainly literature and movies (77.93%). Some girls seek pregnancy termination when it is no longer possible; in these instances, the infant is often abandoned or killed. Health education and sex education are needed, and various welfare programs should reach impoverished and rural areas. Premarital sexual intimacy among unwed adolescents is widespread, although, in a traditional society, out-of-wedlock pregnancy carries a social stigma. But in spite of the social stigma attached to illegitimate pregnancies, unwed motherhood continues to be a problem. In an attempt to help girls who seek abortion at a stage beyond eligibility for termination, a program funded by foreign assistance cares for these girls until they deliver.
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PMID:A step towards helping mothers with unwanted pregnancies. 1228 86

In Viet Nam, a physician retired from 30 years of work in a maternity ward operates a private gynecological center/abortion clinic. While licensed to perform abortions only during the first few weeks of pregnancy (menstrual regulation), it is likely that the physician also performs later-term abortions. The physician provides contraceptive counseling to her clients but sees many return for abortions, some within a few months. Indeed, it is estimated that most Vietnamese women undergo an average of 2.5 abortions and that the number of abortions in Viet Nam is more than double the number of live births. Among the factors that make Viet Nam's abortion rate one of the highest in the world is the stigma attached to illegitimate birth. Unmarried women account for only 30% of the total number of abortions, however, and married women resort to the procedure because of the lack of choices of dependable contraceptives and the prevalence of misinformation about modern contraceptives. Viet Nam is seeking international assistance to reduce the abortion rate. In addition, officials must remove the financial incentive to provide abortions.
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PMID:The abortion dilemma. What's behind one of the world's highest rates. The nations: Vietnam. 1229 63

In France, under the terms of a law passed by Parliament in 1975, a woman may have an abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy if she is a French resident and, in the event that she is a minor, she has parental consent. The woman must also have 2 medical consultations, a week apart. The woman is reimbursed by the state up to 70% of the cost of the abortion. After 12 weeks, abortion, except for therapeutic abortion, under the terms of Article 317 of the Criminal Code, is a crime, punishable by 6 months to 10 years in prison, a fine of between 1800 and 250,000 Francs, and loss of professional license. Moreover, Article 647 of the Health Code bans any advertising, incitement or propaganda for abortion or abortion-inducing products. Many French women go to Britain or Holland for abortions after 12 weeks, but they face the financial burden of traveling as well as the difficulties of getting help in a strange country and the stigma of having done something illegal. The Mouvement Francais pour le Planning Familial, which won the legalization of contraception in 1967, is now fighting for legal abortion as well as the distribution of information about sexuality, contraception, and abortion in the schools. 2 charges of incitement to abortion have been brought against the organization.
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PMID:France: late abortion. 1231 25

The British Abortion Act of 1967, which makes abortion legal up to 28 weeks, does not extend to Northern Ireland, where abortion is still regulated by the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which makes abortion a felony, and the 1929 Infant Life Preservation Act, which prohibits abortion after the 28th week of pregnancy. The Bourne Judgment of 1928, in which a court held in favor of one Dr. Alex Bourne, who performed an early abortion, may be cited as precedent, but not as law. A woman in Northern Ireland may have an abortion only on the National Health Service and only if pregnancy is life-threatening, if she is mentally retarded, or if the child is likely to be abnormal. How many abortions are actually performed in Northern Ireland each year is not known. Essentially, women with unwanted pregnancies have only 3 options: to have the baby, to risk a back street abortion, and to go to England. Since 1967, 20,000 Northern Irish women have had abortions in England, but it is a privilege reserved for the wealthy because the woman must bear the expenses of traveling to England, establishing residency there, and paying hospital fees. All of this takes time and results in many women having late abortions. The women also must bear the stigma of having done something of which neither church in Northern Ireland approves. Northern Irish women, quite simply, do not have the same rights as women in England, Scotland, and Wales.
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PMID:Northern Ireland: an anomaly. 1231 26

Infertility is of particular concern in Africa because of the extent of the problem and the social stigma attached to it. The highest prevalence of infertility in Africa occurs south of the Sahara, but 5-8% of couples are estimated to experience infertility at some point in their reproductive lives (50-80 million people worldwide). The average infertility in Africa is 10.1% of couples, with a high of 32% in some countries, and certain tribes have high infertility rates. While primary infertility is higher in other regions of the world, secondary infertility is more common in Africa, and secondary infertility rates are very complicated to determine. The World Health Organization Task Force on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Infertility instituted a standardized approach to studies of infertility which was adopted in 33 countries. Between 1978 and 1982, a pilot study of this approach examined 8504 couples and found that less than 50% of male and female infertile partners were primarily infertile, and 66% did achieve a pregnancy within the union. The cause of infertility was not determined for 35% of the women and 50% of the infertile men in the sample. Infertility was accounted for by endocrine factors (usually menstrual or ovulatory disturbances) in 35% of infertile cases and tubal factors (such as unilateral or bilateral tubal occlusion, pelvic adhesion, and other abnormalities) in 32%. About 66% of African women experienced tubal factors compared to about 33% worldwide. About 9% of women reported a history of sexually transmitted disease (STD), and 8% reported abortion complications. 46% of men in sub-Saharan Africa reported a history of STDs. About 24% of women with primary infertility and 40% of women with secondary infertility had no previous history of pelvic inflammatory disease or STDs and had tubal disease. African infections are common due to inadequate health services, improper use of antibiotics, and penicillin-resistant strains of gonorrhea. Public health programs should be implemented to prevent infection-related infertility.
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PMID:Infertility in Africa. 1231 40

Rape is recognized as a crime of war. During armed conflict in Bosnia, it was deliberate policy to rape young women to force them to bear the enemy's child. During conflicts in Rwanda, rape was systematically used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing aimed at destroying communities. The national population office in Rwanda estimates that 2000-5000 infants were born as a result of such rape. The general decline in women's health, and in their reproductive health in particular, were two consequences of the wars in Bosnia and Rwanda. Women and girls suffered most from the violence. Systematic rape also has a terrible effect upon women's physical and mental health, including pregnancy-related complications, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and death as a result of induced abortion. Fear of social stigma associated with being raped discourages women who have been raped from seeking help or treatment. Moreover, most women who have been raped have difficulty re-establishing intimate relations, while others desire to bear many more children in order to compensate for children lost during the war. Finally, even women who are not raped during times of conflict may find it necessary to have sex with men in order to secure food, shelter, safe conduct, and/or refugee status for themselves and their children. Health services available to people with injuries or STDs need to be better equipped to provide medical care and counseling.
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PMID:Sexual violence against women is a weapon of war. Special feature -- mothers as refugees. 1232 Oct 81

In a study in rural Maharashtra, India, adolescents constituted 13.1% of the 1717 married women who had an induced abortion during an 18-month period in 1996-1998. The 197 adolescents who were subsequently interviewed had a lesser role in the decision-making process on abortion than women older than them. Most abortions were obtained in the private sector. Though spacing was the main reason for adolescents seeking abortion, prior contraceptive use among them was low. Additionally, they were less likely to receive post-abortion contraceptive counselling or to adopt contraception. Sex selection accounted for more than a fifth of abortions among adolescents. Additional qualitative data from 43 never-married and separated adolescents seeking abortion showed that non-consensual sex made many pregnancies unwanted, and cost, limited mobility, lack of family and partner support and the need for privacy to prevent stigma led many to go to traditional providers, even though safer options existed. Family planning programmes need to address the contraceptive needs of newly married adolescent women as well as unmarried adolescents. Informing adolescents of their legal rights, sensitising providers to adopt an empathetic attitude, and exploring innovative ways of increasing access to safe services for unmarried adolescents are all recommended.
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PMID:Induced abortions among adolescent women in rural Maharashtra, India. 1236 34

Although African adolescents' risk of undergoing abortion and of related health complications is well-documented, little is known about the procedure's prominence in their lives and the pathways that lead to their reliance upon it. This study investigates abortion dynamics among male and female Zulu adolescents in KwaZulu/Natal, South Africa. It explores the role of abortion in young people's sexual and reproductive experience, its acceptability, the reasons and likelihood of young people's choosing abortion, and the commonly used methods of pregnancy termination. The study, a rural-urban comparison using focus-group discussions, narrative workshops, and role playing, involved surveys and in-depth interviews. Factors contributing to the commonplace nature of backstreet procedures among adolescents include: social stigma, inadequate knowledge of the legal status of abortion, and a complex group decisionmaking process. Young people invoke "relative moralities" concerning adolescent abortion, recognizing and condoning it on a context-specific basis. Age, gender, and geographic differences are examined. The methodological triangulation used offers the opportunity for alternative theoretical and methodological approaches to research on abortion-related issues.
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PMID:Pregnancy termination among South African adolescents. 1255 86

Reproductive isolation is considered to play a key part in evolution, and plants and animals have developed a range of strategies that minimize gene flow between species. In plants, these strategies involve either pre-zygotic barriers, such as differences in floral structure and pollen-stigma recognition, or post-zygotic barriers, which are less well understood and affect aspects of seed development ranging from fertilization to maturation. In most angiosperms, a double fertilization event gives rise to a zygote and the endosperm: a triploid tissue with an unequal parental genomic contribution, which, like the placenta of mammals, provides reserves to the developing embryo. Interestingly, many aspects of endosperm development, again like the placenta, are regulated by a range of epigenetic mechanisms that are globally termed imprinting. Imprinted genes are characterized by their uniparental expression, the other parental allele being silenced. Normal development of the endosperm thus requires a highly specific balance of gene expression, from either the maternal or paternal genomes. Any alteration of this balance resulting from changes in allelic copy number, sequence or epigenetic imprints can cause endosperm failure and eventual seed abortion. In its widest sense, the endosperm thus serves as an accurate 'sensor' of compatibility between parents. A first step in understanding this important, yet complex system must clearly be the isolation and characterization of as wide a range as possible of imprinted genes.
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PMID:Imprinting in the endosperm: a possible role in preventing wide hybridization. 1283 76

Observations about the floral biology and the reproductive system of Macroptilium fraternum were made in two populations in Argentina, with different edaphic conditions, situated at the southern area of distribution of the species. The coexistence of two kind of flowers in the same plant was detected in both populations and in herbarium material from other localities: a) cleistogamous preanthesis flowers and b) pseudocleistogamous flowers. The cleistogamous preanthesis flowers possessed wings longer than 5 mm and were disposed in pubescent, erect, racemes exposed above the level of the foliage. The anthesis lasted approximately 5 hours on sunny days or 9 hours on rainy days, the right wing covered the left wing, the corolla acquired a bilabiate aspect, offering the left wing as landing platform; they produced a low quantity of nectar (0.18 +/- 0.13 microliter); they did not receive pollinator visits; approximately four hours after the beginning of the anthesis on sunny days the ovary started to grow; in the bud, the receptive stigma was covered with germinating pollen grains from the same floral unit. The pseudocleistogamous flowers possessed wings shorter than 5 mm that were disposed in brief, hirsute and prostrate racemes, non subterranean as in other Macroptilium species; the banner started to spread exposing partially the wings, the left wing limb surrounded the keel and never spread; the right wing started to spread and after 2 seconds refolded and began to wither, the ovary began to grow immediately; the flower did not offer a surface to allow visitors to settle; in the buds the stigma was receptive and found with pollen grains from the same floral unit emitting their tubes. The relative reproductive success was low (natural pollination = 8%; spontaneous self-pollination = 3%), probably due to the low pollen viability, the high percentage of seed abortion and the lack of pollinator's visits. The production of both flower types is not conditioned by edaphic factors, as they were found in plants belonging to different environments. Study of the progeny of both floral types in both populations has demonstrated that each one produces a similar amount of seeds contributing to the next generation with plants of similar characteristics (slow development, low resistance to infections and high mortality). The absence of pollinators in these flowers (in part because they preferred to visit flowers of other species with more reward and in part because of the fragmentation of the habitats), would be producing inbreeding depression in the studied populations; if the germplasm variability is not preserved, these populations situated at the Southern end of the distribution range of the species could become extinguished.
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PMID:[Floral biology, reproductive system and reproductive success of Macroptilium fraternum (Fabaceae)]. 1516 30


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