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Attempts to restrict abortion have included requiring women to view their ultrasound images before the procedure, presumably to convince them to continue their pregnancies. Researchers investigated whether voluntary preprocedural viewing influenced such decisions in 15,575 clinic visits by women seeking abortion (>60% aged 20-29, >75% below poverty level, gestational age range, 3–24 weeks). Women rated the strength of their decisions to terminate and chose whether or not to view their ultrasound images (routinely obtained).
Some 85% of participants reported high decision certainty, and 7% reported medium or low certainty; of the entire sample, 42% elected viewing. In all, 99% of pregnancies ended in abortion. Among women who did or did not c…