The Changing Voice of the Anti-Abortion Movement

Saurette, Paul; Gordon, Kelly

doi:10.3138/9781442668751

Cited by 23 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…In the 1960s, much of the debate over abortion rights implicitly suggested that rather than undermining the 'natural' family, better access was necessary to ensure 'good mothers' had children or had them in 'good' circumstances (Sheldon, 1997). Hence rather than being a new discourse as seen elsewhere (Oaks, 2000;Saurette and Gordon, 2015), the emphasis on women in current British anti-abortion discourse shows significant continuities with the past. Whilst the positioning of pregnancy as merely a child 'on the wet side of the womb' is a predominantly foetal-centric argument aimed at eroding birth as significant, it also simultaneously repositions women's bodies as central.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the US, this has often coalesced around Target Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws 5 which restrict abortion access but make little difference to safety (Gold and Nash, 2013). As Saurette and Gordon's (2015) study of North America has shown, the harm outlined by anti-abortion groups is broad, including psychological impact, iatrogenic procedural impact, and risks to women's future health. Moreover, they claim that women are misled about the risks, positing women as victims of a 'disingenuous' medical profession.…”

Section: Motherhood and Anti-abortion Understandingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Commentators elsewhere have suggested that around the turn of the 21st century, antiabortion campaigning shifted towards specifically focusing on the idea that abortion is harmful to women (see for example Oaks, 2000;Rose, 2011;Saurette and Gordon, 2015). Cannold (2002) argues that this strategy is a tactical choice adopted due to the lack of 'success' of foetal-centric approaches, which failed to mobilise significant attitude changes.…”

Section: Motherhood and Anti-abortion Understandingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, many activists attempted to frame their arguments in non-religious formats, suggesting that 'science' supports their position. These include claiming a causal link between abortion and breast cancer and mental health issues, widely disproved by medical researchers (Lee, 2003;Saurette and Gordon, 2015).…”

Section: Mediating Secular and Religious Discoursesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘On the wet side of the womb’: The construction of ‘mothers’ in anti-abortion activism in England and Wales

Lowe

Page

2018

European Journal of Women's Studies

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Across the UK, there has been an increase in anti-abortion activism outside abortion clinics. The activism deployed includes explicitly religious activities such as 'prayerful witnessing' and 'pavement counselling', which aim to discourage women from entering clinics. This article stems from a wider ethnographic study of public activism over abortion to determine what claims about motherhood are being made within these debates. Two arguments are presented. First, how women's role as mothers is central and essentialised in anti-abortion discourses, with the body of the mother often disappearing as activists seek to erode the distinction between a foetus and a baby by constructing pregnancy as a foetal environment. Motherhood is constructed as 'natural' and sacred, therefore abortion must be damaging because it destroys women's 'natural' position. Second, the article argues that although the activists' arguments are always religiously framed, their activism takes place in a largely secular context, meaning that they have to find ways of appealing to secular audiences. This leads to a complex interrelationship between secular and religious discourses, where theological viewpoints sit alongside 'scientific' claims to buttress activists' views. This article explores how the presence and absence of mothers within activists' narratives is due to the tensions between religiously based understandings of motherhood, and the need to appeal to a secular audience.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Motherhood and Anti-abortion Understandingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Motherhood and Anti-abortion Understandingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mediating Secular and Religious Discoursesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

‘On the wet side of the womb’: The construction of ‘mothers’ in anti-abortion activism in England and Wales

Lowe

Page

2018

European Journal of Women's Studies

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“…Under Stephen Harper, the party avoided boasting about its anti-2SLGBTQ initiatives, while social conservatives continued to attempt to use the state to strengthen and promote the cisnormative heteropatriarchal family and gender relations by maintaining a homophobic age of consent (Dauda, 2010) and restricting welfare services, public education curriculum, immigration (Gaucher, 2018), international maternal health programs and abortion access (Saurette & Gordon, 2016). These goals were cautiously pursued.…”

Section: Canadian Federal Conservatism and Personal Issuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protecting Cisnormative Private and Public Spheres: The Canadian Conservative Denunciation of Transgender Rights

DeGagne

2021

SSJ

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The public sphere has been seen by conservatives as an arena for safeguarding private relations. Private power relations (in the family, religion, community and economy) could be threatened by newly recognized social groups that make claims on the state for justice and equality. Therefore, conservatives have been concerned about who can speak and exist in public and who can thereby make demands on the state. In the debates over transgender rights in Canada, social conservatives and neoliberal forces have merged in complex and impactful ways. Analyzing House of Commons and Senate debates and committee proceedings for Bill C-279 (2015) and Bill C-16 (2016–2017), I examine three conservative arguments that illustrate attempts to maintain private power relations and hierarchal gendered divisions by ensuring that transgender and gender nonconforming people are not allowed to exist, speak or make claims in public: first, the assertion that gender identity and gender expression are not definable identity categories for claims-making because transgender people are deceptive and can change their gender based on their feelings; second, the targeting of public facilities, and particularly public bathrooms, as sites of contention, danger and necessary gender segregation; and third, the attempt to delegitimize rights claims by criminalizing transgender people in relation to cisgender women and children.

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The Contribution of Gender Equality to the Coexistence of Progressive Abortion and Sexual Orientation Laws

2022

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The Changing Voice of the Anti-Abortion Movement

Cited by 23 publications

References 0 publications

‘On the wet side of the womb’: The construction of ‘mothers’ in anti-abortion activism in England and Wales

‘On the wet side of the womb’: The construction of ‘mothers’ in anti-abortion activism in England and Wales

Protecting Cisnormative Private and Public Spheres: The Canadian Conservative Denunciation of Transgender Rights

The Contribution of Gender Equality to the Coexistence of Progressive Abortion and Sexual Orientation Laws

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