10.1177/1049732304267693 QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH / October 2004 Erviti et al. / COPING WITH ABORTION Strategies Used by Low-Income Mexican Women to Deal With Miscarriage and “Spontaneous” Abortion Joaquina Erviti Roberto Castro Ana Collado This study focuses on lowest income Mexican women attended for abortion-related compli- cations in a public hospital. The objective was to investigate the women’s experience of hav- ing a so-called “spontaneous” abortion and their related strategies to avoid stigmatization. Four strategies emerge from women’s testimonies: presenting themselves as women who “play by the rules,” pleading ignorance of the pregnancy, stating that they had already accepted their pregnancy, or presenting the abortion as the result of an accident. Women use these strategies to deflect any blame to which they might be subjected and as a means of deal- ing with the stigma attached to a behavior that transgresses social norms regarding repro- duction. Far from being passive receptors of the social imperative, which makes motherhood compulsory, women oscillate strategically within the margins of a seemingly uniform normative discourse and thereby ensure their moral survival. The authors discuss results within the framework of praxis theory. Keywords: experiences; strategies; abortion; women; Mexico A v a ilable treatment and care for abortions, the effects of abortion on women’s health, and the subjective experiences of women who abort depend on the national context in political, legal, and sociocultural terms (Harden, & Ogden, 1999; Rylko-Bauer, 1996). In most developing countries, abortion is penalized legally. Criminalizing abortion forces women to have clandestine abortions, which are often unsafe. In these countries, lowest income women most often resort to clandes- tine abortions and most often die from complications following an abortion in unsafe conditions (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1994; Birth Control Trust, 1998; Henshaw, Singh, & Haas, 1999; United Nations, 1995). Prevailing political, legal, and sociocultural contexts impede the creation of services for women who abort and pose legal and social barriers to those wishing to access existing services. 1058 AUTHORS’ NOTE: We are grateful for the financial support of the Carnegie Foundation, the Pan- American Health Organization and the Interdisciplinary Program of Women’s Studies. We are also grate- ful to Dr. Mario Bronfman, who encouraged us to initiate this project, and to Clara Juarez and Rosario Valdes, who carried out the interviews. We also want to especially thankthe women who shared their experiences with us. QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH, Vol. 14 No. 8, October 2004 1058-1076 DOI: 10.1177/1049732304267693 © 2004 Sage Publications