Sarah is a Chicana. She is married, has one child, and is pregnant with her second and shows. She wears maternity clothing to classes in Social Work, where she is now a graduate student and hopes to complete her degree course work before the baby is born. A classmate is conducting research for a thesis on abortion. Should this researcher approach Sarah as a potential participant in an opinion survey? If not, why not, and if it is okay, should the researcher give any special consideration to Sarah because of her life situation?
Yes, the researcher could approach Sarah as a potential subject in this research. Invitations to participate are often publically posted notices; there is no way to protect Sarah from bulletin boards. Nevertheless, public recruitment materials must be inoffensive, and they must be accurate and truthful. In this situation it would be far worse to lure Sarah (and others) into the more socially confining circumstances of a recruitment meeting to tell them that the research is about abortion than to respect her autonomy to decide for herself whether she is at all interested to hear more about the project.
And yes, the researcher should have considered in advance that some potential subjects may be non-neutral, sometimes because of convictions, sometimes because of special (relatively short-term circumstances). In the case of abortion, pregnant women should be given additional consideration, which includes acknowledgment that a significant number of women have reported that the subject of abortion can be surprisingly emotional for them.
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