Managing Crisis in the Abortion Field

• In Event: Organizational Responses to Crisis

Abstract

Historically, abortion has been exceptionalized – targeted with legislative restrictions and political scrutiny and kept apart from mainstream healthcare. Because of its sequestered nature, a unique field of abortion provision has developed. This paper suggests abortion services constitute a Bourdieusian field that is shaped by ongoing crisis and complicated relationships with the fields of healthcare, the legal field, the economy, and the state. The abortion field consists of abortion providers (who are situated in an array of clinical and telehealth settings), abortion funds (who make abortion affordable for low-income pregnant people), community networks (volunteers who source pills internationally and send them through the mail), digital specialists (who make information and resources available to the public and through online platforms), legal practitioners, and social movement actors. Members of the field vie for different kinds of field-specific capital, and the field is beset with conflict over institutional logics and modes of service delivery. Drawing on Bourdieusian field theory and 65 interviews with abortion professionals conducted in 2024-2025, this paper analyzes the way in which crisis has recently reshaped the field and the strategies field members use to manage those crises.

Authors

• Claire Laurier Decoteau, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Monserat Rodriguez-Rico, University of Illinois-Chicago