The Changing Voice of the Anti-Abortion Movement: The Rise of "Pro-Woman" Rhetoric in Canada and the United States

450 Pages·2016·3.273 MB·English

by  Paul Saurette, Kelly Gordon

THE CHANGING VOICE OF THE ANTI-
ABORTION MOVEMENT
The Rise of “Pro-Woman” Rhetoric in
Canada and the United States
When journalists, academics, and politicians describe the North Amer-
ican anti-abortion movement, they often describe a campaign that is
male-dominated, aggressive and even violent in its tactics, religious in
motivation, anti-woman in tone, and fetal-centric in its arguments and
rhetoric. Are they correct?
In The Changing Voice of the Anti-abortion Movement, Paul Saurette and
Kelly Gordon suggest that the reality is far more complicated, partic-
ularly in Canada. Today, anti-abortion activism increasingly presents
itself as “pro-woman”: using female spokespersons, adopting medi-
cal and scientific language to claim that abortion harms women, and
employing a wide range of more subtle framing and narrative rhetori-
cal tactics that use traditionally progressive themes to present the anti-
abortion position as more feminist than pro-choice feminism.
Following a succinct but comprehensive overview of the two-
hundred-year history of North American debate and legislation on
abortion, Saurette and Gordon present the results of their systematic,
five-year quantitative and qualitative discourse analysis, supplemented
by extensive first-person observations, and outline the implications
that flow from these findings. Their discoveries are a challenge to our
current assumptions about the abortion debate today, and their conclu-
sions will be compelling for both scholars and activists alike.
paul saurette is a professor in the School of Political Studies at the
University of Ottawa.
kelly gordon is a PhD candidate in the School of Political Studies at the
University of Ottawa.
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The Changing Voice of the
Anti-abortion Movement
The Rise of “Pro-Woman” Rhetoric in
Canada and the United States
PAUL SAURETTE AND KELLY GORDON
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press 2015
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in the U.S.A.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4761-9 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4426-1569-4 (paper)
Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-
based inks.
______________________________________________________________________
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Saurette, Paul, author
The changing voice of the anti-abortion movement: the rise of
“pro-woman” rhetoric in Canada and the United States / Paul
Saurette and Kelly Gordon.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4426-4761-9 (cloth). – ISBN 978-1-4426-1569-4 (paper)
1. Pro-life movement – Canada – History. 2. Pro-life movement – United
States – History. I. Gordon, Kelly, 1984–, author II. Title.
HQ767.5.C3S29 2015 363.460971 C2015-907240-9
______________________________________________________________________
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation
for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly
Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its
publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario
Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.
aunn Oorngtaanriiosm geo vdeur ngmouevnet rangeemnecnyt de l’Ontario
Funded by the Financé par le
Government gouvernement
of Canada du Canada
Contents
Preface xi
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Abortion Politics in North America Today 4
1.2 Why Study Abortion Politics? 11
1.3 The Traditional Portrait: Male, Religious, Legislative,
Anti-woman, Fetal-centric 12
1.4 Theoretical Framework: Words Matter 17
1.5 Methodology and Research Design 21
1.6 Methodological Reliability 27
1.7 Chapter Overview 31
Part I: Historicizing the Abortion Debate in North America
2 The History of the Abortion Debate in the United States 37
2.1 Abortion before 1840 37
2.2 The AMA’s Crusade against Abortion: Medicalizing
and (Im)moralizing Abortion 39
2.3 Criminalizing Abortion, 1840–1900 43
2.4 Liberalizing Birth Control, 1900–1940 47
2.5 Legal Reform: Therapeutic Abortion Committees,
1950s–1960s 51
2.6 Setting the Stage for the Rise of the Abortion Rights
Movement, 1960–1965 52
2.7 The Rise of Rights before Roe v. Wade, 1965–1972 55
2.8 The Roe v. Wade Decision, 1973 59
2.9 Conclusion 62
vi Contents
3 The Abortion Debate in the United States after Roe v. Wade 65
3.1 The Rise of the Contemporary American Anti-abortion
Movement and the Hyde Amendment 66
3.2 The Rising Influence of the Religious Right 68
3.3 Operation Rescue 71
3.4 The Rise of Anti-abortion Violence and the Decline of Operation
Rescue 77
3.5 The Backtrack: Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 1989 79
3.6 Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v.
Robert P. Casey et al., 1992 81
3.7 Partial Birth Abortion Bans: Stenberg v. Carhart and Gonzales v.
Carhart 83
3.8 Contemporary Abortion Legislation 84
3.9 Conclusion 90
4 The History of the Early Abortion Debate in Canada 92
4.1 Criminalizing Abortion in Britain and Colonial Canada 93
4.2 Abortion Reform in the United Kingdom 96
4.3 The Birth Control Movement in Canada 99
4.4 Abortion Reform in Canada 101
4.5 The Decriminalization of Abortion: Section 251 105
4.6 The Fallout over Section 251 106
4.7 The Emergence of the Canadian Anti-abortion Movement 108
4.8 The Intensification of the Anti-abortion Movement
in Canada 110
4.9 The Christian Right in Canada 111
4.10 T he Discourse of the Early Canadian Anti-abortion Movement 113
4.11 Conclusion 116
5 The Abortion Debate in Canada: Morgentaler and Beyond 118
5.1 Abortion in the Courts, Round 1: Morgentaler v. The Queen,
1976 118
5.2 A Transforming Political and Legal Context 120
5.3 Abortion in the Courts, Round 2: R. v. Morgentaler, 1988 123
5.4 Establishing a “Sense of the House”: The Parliamentary
Abortion Debate of 1988 126
5.5 Abortion in the Courts, Round 3: Borowski’s Attempt to
Establish Fetal Rights 129
5.6 Abortion in the Courts, the Final Round:
Tremblay v. Daigle 130
5.7 Drafting a New Abortion Law: Abortion in the
Political Realm 132
5.8 Anti-abortion Violence 134
Contents vii
5.9 Recent Anti-abortion Legislative Efforts 136
5.10 Conclusion 143
6 Intermezzo: The History of the Abortion Debate in
North America 145
6.1 Abortion Politics in the United States and Canada: Historical
Similarities and Differences 145
6.2 The Historical Abortion Debate and the Traditional Portrait 152
Part II: T he Changing Voice of the Contemporary
Anti-abortion Movement
7 Shifting Strategies: A Little Old, a Lot New, a Bit of Both 159
7.1 Failing to Plan Is Planning to Fail: Results-Oriented
Strategizing 162
7.2 The Terrain of Contestation: Law and/or Culture 166
7.3 To the Web! The New Anti-abortion Network 170
7.4 Communications, Communications, Communications 173
7.5 Persuasion in the Streets: Reason, Rhetoric, and
Respect 178
7.6 Conclusion 188
8 Women Up Front, God Out Back: The Changing Anti-abortion
Arguments 189
8.1 God and the Public Sphere 191
8.2 Think about the Women: The “Abortion-Harms-Women”
Argument 198
8.3 Framing Harm: Discursive Medicalization, Progressive
Cooptation, Repetition 206
8.4 Visual Signalling: The Changing Face of the Movement 211
8.5 Fetal Personhood Renewed 216
8.6 Conclusion 220
9 We’re All Progressives Now: Rebranding the Movement 222
9.1 Essentially Contested Concepts, Networks of Association,
and Framing 222
9.2 Identity/Brand Frame Extension: Progressives against
Abortion 231
9.3 Historical Progressivism 234
9.4 Contemporary Progressivism 237
9.5 Seekers of Truth, Defenders of Free Speech 240
9.6 Conclusion 243
viii Contents
10 Anti-abortionism as the New Feminism: Reframing the
Position 245
10.1 Values Framing: Equality and Choice 245
10.2 Issue Framing: Anti-abortionism as a Women’s Issue 253
10.3 Epistemological Framing: Standpoint Anti-abortionism 264
10.4 Conclusion 270
11 From Jezebel to Snow White: Moralizing through
Narrativizing 271
11.1 Metaphorical Tone: Strict Father or Nurturant Parent? 271
11.2 From Jezebel to Snow White: Narratives in Action 277
11.3 Conclusion 291
12 “Pro-woman” Discourse in the United States 292
12.1 The Enduring Relevance of the Traditional Portrait in the
United States 292
12.2 The Emergence of Woman-Protective Anti-abortion
Arguments 296
12.3 The Prevalence of Woman-Protective Anti-abortion Arguments
in American Anti-abortion Discourse 301
12.4 Conclusion: Comparing the United States and Canada 308
Part III: Conclusions and Implications
13 Theoretical Implications 315
13.1 Our Findings 316
13.2 Implications for the Study of Canadian Politics 320
13.3 Implications for the Study of Political Movements,
Communication, and Ideology 321
13.4 Implications for the Study of Religion and Politics in Canada 323
13.5 Explaining the Shape of Contemporary Anti-abortion
Discourse in Canada 327
13.6 Implications for Gender Studies 331
13.7 Methodological Implications 334
14 Where to Now? Practical Implications for Abortion Rights
Advocates 337
14.1 A Reproductive Justice Frame? 339
14.2 Organizational and Tactical Implications 345
Contents ix
Acknowledgments 361
Appendix A: Glossary of Key Legal and Political Events,
Organizations, and Individuals 367
A1. Legislation, Policy, Legal Decisions 367
A2. Civil Society Organizations and Campaigns 373
A3. Individuals 379
Appendix B: Historical Timeline – Abortion Politics in the United Kingdom,
Canada, and the United States 384
Appendix C: Historical Timeline – Abortion Discourse in Canada and the
United States 388
References 393
Index 423