Revelation and Secrecy: Women’s Social Networks and the Contraception-Abortion Process in Cameroon

Abstract

Induced abortion is both illegal and common in Cameroon. To understand the frequency of pregnancy termination, this chapter investigates how social networks influence Cameroonian women’s decisions about contraception, pregnancy, and abortion—along the entire contraception-abortion process. Women’s decisions defining the state, intentionality, and desired action regarding early pregnancies are constructed in interaction with networks and social environments. African women and their responses to unintended or unwanted pregnancy are heterogeneous. Variations in social network influence reflect differences in the vulnerability felt by young unmarried women, by married non-elites, and by married women of the urban educated elite. The influence of male sexual partners, mothers, female friends, and fellow association members likewise vary, as women alternatively choose to reveal or keep secret their reproductive quandaries.