Abstract
M.Ed.
New legislation on the termination of pregnancy (Number 92 of 1996) was approved
by President Mandela on 12 November 1996, and came into effect on 1 February 1997. This law allows any pregnant woman above the age of 12, thus including adolescents, to decide to have her pregnancy terminated. Furthermore, the adolescents do not need parental permission to have their pregnancies terminated.
The question arising from this is the following: how do the parents, and more specifically the mother, experience the termination of their adolescent daughter's pregnancy?
To explore and describe the feelings of these mothers, qualitative, explorative,
descriptive and contextual research was utilized in two phases.
During Phase I, in depth phenomenological interviews were conducted. During
Phase II logical inference was used to generate guidelines for educational
psychologists to enable them to assist and guide these mothers whose adolescent
daughters had had their pregnancies terminated.
The research showed that the following themes were observed recurringly:
> Shock, disillusionment and internal conflict due to the decision to have the
pregnancy terminated.
> Sorrow due to overwhelming emotions after the termination of the pregnancy.
> Helplessness due to the inability to deal with the course of events.
> Mechanisms of defense in an attempt to protect themselves.
The guidelines that have been set, are as follows:
> Setting of goals and rational emotive therapy.
> Guidelines regarding unconditional acceptance of the mother, the verbalising of
emotions and the addressing of irrational thoughts.
> Guidelines to empower mothers to assist both themselves and their daughters.
> Guidelines to assist mothers to apply the mechanisms of defense in a positive way.