I was a little disappointed when we found out today that all of our research papers lacked proper research. But, I did question myself whether I chose the right countries to analyze. I really liked the idea of using China, because China is basically our nation's evil step sister. China has vast problems with population and reproductive controls. It was difficult to find information that would be comparable across country lines. This made me question why this information is so scattered and not readily available for the public.
I came across this article called "The Incidence of Abortion Worldwide." The author made clear that government councils that deal with population development need information surrounding abortions. However, "...in many countries where abortion is legal under broad conditions, statistics on abortion are collected and are of reasonable completeness and accuracy, but in others, official data are lacking or are incomplete." The article goes on to say that, "a common problem is that some privately performed procedures go unreported and are therefore not counted."
The article highlighted the problems they received in gathering public opinion information in China. The author had to use Ministry of Health statistics because of their availability. But, there have been, "...suggestions that the administrative units that supply data to the Ministry of Health may have had a tendency to overreport [sic] in the past." The overall message of the article is that abortion information in many countries is usually incomplete and misleading.
According to the article, "although the official rate in China is 26 abortions per 1,000 women, the true rate is probably between 30 and 35 per 1,000, close to the world average, when the undercount is considered." So, I wasn't kidding myself when I said it was hard to find information, but what's even harder is public opinion on the matters. I really don't think it's from a lack of effort upon my part. I think I will just omit China in my research even though I believe their country provides an interesting take on abortion.
Just thought I would let you know that I was also disappointed my the research paper aspect of our papers and although I think I did do enough research it was on the wrong aspect. I did not focus enough on the public opinion aspect and rather comparing the pros and cons of each countries system. I also thought I would let you know that I really like the idea of comparing China and the way you put it as our evil sister, but I understand getting rid of it. Because of the one child rule and the importance of boys I think the country would be vastly different then US. Im sure that you will make great changes to your paper that will make it great. Don't be discouraged if you paper lacked research.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Allie! You captured the problem pretty good. I feel like most of my paper was about the issue rather than the public's opinion. A lot of the information that I find online is labeled as "public opinion", but then when you look at the actual data, it's just the amount of abortions that have been recorded in the country--nothing to do with the opinion. Good Luck with restructuring yours!! I'm sure your paper will be great! =)
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