Arguing Abortion: The New Anti-Abortion Discourse in Canada

Abstract

While some observers denigrate political speech as mere window dressing and suggest that the real meat of politics is to be found elsewhere, how we talk in politics matters. 1 Arendt famously argues that the very foundation of our democratic politics is speech since for the ancient Greeks, "to be political, to live in a polis meant that everything was decided through words and persuasion and not through force and violence"~Arendt, 1958: 26!. The belief that broad trends in public, political discourse are important factors influencing many political phenomena~whether persuading key constituencies to vote for a specific party or policy, or the much longerterm impact of reinforcing and making "commonsensical" certain patterns of argumentation, broad sets of values, emotional responses and other ideological structures! is shared by diverse group of historical and contemporary political theorists, cognitive scientists, psychologists and public relations scholars and practitioners. 2 Even legal scholars argue that the way we conceptualize and talk about political and legal values can have immense impact on what laws are passed, how they are interpreted and which are upheld or struck down by the courts. 3 In North America, we have spent vast amounts of energy talking and politicking about the issue of abortion over the last 40 years. In the US, it remains as contested an issue as ever. More than 29 of the 50 governors in office at the beginning of 2011 were considered staunchly anti-abortioñ New York Times, 2011a! and in the first eight months of that year, 61 antiabortion laws were enacted, nearly triple the number in all of 2010, and more than double the previous record of 28 set in 1997~New York Times, 2011b!. Since the late 1980s, the situation in Canada has often seemed dormant in comparison. Today, even Canada's current Conservative prime

“I kind of feel like sometimes I am shoving it under the carpet”: Documenting women’s experiences with post-abortion support in Ontario

“…The anti-choice movement in both the US and Canada has shifted its narrative from focusing on the fetus to focusing on women (Saurette and Gordon 2013). In this way, they have seized an "abortion harms women" message that presents abortion as a trauma and the decision to have one as tortured (Kelly 2014).…”

Framing a ‘social problem': Emotion in anti‐abortion activists' depiction of the abortion debate

“…The wider social processes behind the development and dissemination of this characterization of abortion as emotionally damaging for women have been explored by those interested in the sociology of social movement organization (Rohlinger, ; Rose, ; Trumpy, ); contemporary legal decision‐making (Leinwand, ; Ziegler, ); and political science (Saurette & Gordon, ; Zhang & Counts, ). They have also received attention from scholars engaged in feminist politics and strategy (Cannold, ).…”

Constructing abortion as a social problem: “Sex selection” and the British abortion debate

“…“Feminised” claims against abortion focused on harms to women’s health have attracted the most scholarly attention (Kelly, 2014; Rose, 2011; Saurette & Gordon, 2013; Siegal, 2007; Trumpy, 2014). Cannold has outlined, for example, “the rise and use of a ‘woman-centred’ anti-choice strategy to oppose abortion in Australia and the USA”, based on claims that, “women do not really choose abortion but are pressured into it by others and then experience a range of negative effects afterwards, including an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility and post-abortion grief” (Cannold, 2002, p. 171).…”