"There is guilt, and often there is a lot of guilt. Many women feel they are committing a sin, some women even feel they are committing a murder, but there isn't a sense of loss; there isn't the sense that the fetus is a person," she said.

U.S. studies show that women, both pro-life and pro-choice, who have abortions experience feelings of loss, Halkias said.

During her one-year period in Greece, she only interviewed one woman who viewed her abortion as a loss, Halkias said.

"For them, it's not about losing a potential infant," she said.

Another woman used abortion to establish her autonomy, Halkias said. This woman was a married 34-year-old, soon to be separated from her husband, who had four sons. She had had six previous abortions, and decided to terminate her 11th pregnancy even though she was financially independent and could have supported another child.

"I want to be alone,'" the woman told Halkias. Halkias said the woman reported that her husband wanted to keep the baby, but that she felt justified in going against his wishes because men "'don't really contribute"' to child rearing--they "'just work."'

However empowering women's individual strategies may be, the lack of a female voice in legislation about abortion and dimografiko is dangerous, Halkias said.

Many Greek policy makers and members of the medical establishment do not believe women have anything valuable to say about the topic, Halkias said.

One prominent Athenian gynecologist tried to persuade Halkias to change her dissertation topic, she said. His comments present the sad state of female representation in the public sphere abortion debate in a nutshell.

"'They abort without reason,"' the doctor said, according to Halkias. "'Greek women don't understand anything."'