The Right to Choose: ReproductiveHealth and Motherhood in Comparative Perspective.

The paper expands the notion of the ‘right to choose’ and views it as a two-dimensional concept, one which involves not only the choice to prevent and terminate pregnancies, but also the choice to become a mother regardless of social and economic circumstances. The paper focuses on a particularly vulnerable social group: single women/mothers. The first dimension includes access to information on and reproductive health services. The second dimension includes analysis of the extent to which a woman’s economic well-being is curtailed by the choice to become a mother. I have collected preliminary data on both indicators across a group of advanced countries and a group of Latin American countries, and theorize the major independent variables that affect both dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]