Visualising relational autonomy in abortion decision-making

In my PhD project, Post-Abortion Narratives, I investigated the process of personal decision-making within a particular social context. In order to locate the individual as decision-making agent, I devised a method which I call ‘mud maps.’ The freestyle drawings produced during the interview give both the participant and the researcher a view into the position of self and the flow of knowledge in the decision-making process.
This insight is particularly pertinent when faced with a foetal disability diagnosis. In this presentation, I share the mud map of one participant with a Trisomy-18 pregnancy, who placed herself, her partner and the obstetrician as equal decision makers in the centre of the social network. I also share the mud map of one participant who indicated the flow of knowledge from the medical clinic to herself and on to her partner.
These findings speak to the patient relationship within the medical field and the position of the decision-maker vis-à-vis the medical practitioner, unsettling understandings of the free and autonomous decision-maker. I employed a ‘relational autonomy’ understanding of the individual in order to investigate and explicate this relationship. This research contributes to wider understandings on abortion decision-making processes especially in the context of foetal diagnostic testing.