Pro-Life and Pro-Woman: Complicating the U.S. Anti-Abortion Narrative

• In Event: 2229 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable #15

Abstract

Previous sociological research predominantly characterizes the pro-life movement as anti-feminist and anti-woman. However, new findings suggest pro-life movement organizations are increasingly employing ‘pro-woman’ discursive strategies to frame the abortion issue in recent years. In order to identify pro-woman discourses within pro-life movement issue framing, how the content of these discourses changes over time, and to what extent these themes pervade dominant pro-life discourse, literature from a major pro-life organization, National Right to Life Committee, is examined through historical narrative analysis across two critical periods of abortion policy: 1998-2003 and 2011-2017. Then, NRLC narratives are compared with Concerned Women for America and Students for Life of America narratives from 2011-2017. Results from NRLC newsletters suggests that women are more likely to be portrayed as victims or heroes and less likely to be cast as villains in narratives from the 2011-2017 period than in 1998-2003. This framing of women’s roles in NRLC narratives is a marked departure from historical narratives surrounding women and suggests an increase in pro-woman discursive strategies in pro-life framing. Comparisons of narratives from all three organizations reveal similar themes, which suggests that the pro-woman strategy is pervasive and unified. These findings provide the basis for discussion of changing political and discursive opportunity structures regarding women in the U.S., critically defining how organizations operationalize the pro-woman strategy in practice, and identifying tools with which to examine how appealing to gendered politics and culture, such as those surrounding motherhood and victimhood, can be effective in passing woman-centric, anti-abortion legislation.

Author

• Abigail Newell, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill