Psychological factors involved in request for elective abortion.

In order to understand the increasing numbers of women who are requesting a repeat elective abortion, 13 First Abortion and 13 Repeat Abortion patients were interviewed. There were no significant differences between the two groups. It was found that the failure of contraception was not because the women did not have access to adequate contraception. There was evidence of underlying psychological conflicts, sometimes in one and even both sexual partners. In 9 of the 26 patients there was material clearly suggesting that the women had an underlying conflictual wish to become pregnant. The data also suggests that many of the male partners had a strong wish to father a child. All of these situations suggest the need for adequate counselling.