Reproductive citizenship in Turkey: Abortion chronicles

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper discusses the gendered nature of reproductive citizenship in contemporary Turkey through reading the abortion chronicles and exposes the utilization of women's bodies and subjection of women to demographic state policies. To this end, we focus on recent abortion debates originating from Prime Minister Erdoğan's statement on May 25, 2012 that suggested that “every abortion is a murder”. Our paper is a qualitative analysis of the arguments of the members of the parliament following PM's statement on abortion. We documented and contextualized the recurrent themes; (1) abortion as a rhetorical tool, (2) trivialization of abortion, (3) medicalization of abortion, (4) abortion in the cases of rape, (5) abortion as an economic imperative. As a result, we unravel the gendered discursive limits of “pro-abortion” arguments in Turkey and reveal the frameworks within which the political debates are shaped when women's bodies, sexualities and reproductive capacities are at stake

Abortion Coverage In A Polarized America: A Content Analysis of CNN, Fox And MSNBC

Partisan media news networks are increasingly prevalent in the United States. They have infiltrated nightly news, significantly heightened partisan polarization, and impacted public opinion. In this thesis, I explore the ways in which different primetime cable news shows discuss abortion. I conduct a content analysis of transcripts from randomly selected CNN, Fox, and MSNBC primetime shows in order to identify the major themes in the coverage as well as the differences across networks. My analysis shows substantial opposition towards abortion among Fox News’ hosts and guests while CNN and MSNBC’s reportage was more supportive of a woman’s right to choose. Using the results from this content analysis as a guide, I conclude by offering recommendations for Democratic or abortion access supporters in how to change abortion coverage in the United States in order to influence public policy and public opinion

From Feminist Activist to Abortion Barbie: A Rhetorical History of Abortion Discourse from 2013-2016

This thesis provides a rhetorical history of abortion discourse with an emphasis on the rhetorical moment from 2013-2016. To uncover the rhetorical strategies used to shape consensus on abortion, I highlight three major events—Senator Wendy Davis’s (D-Fort Worth) notorious 13-hour filibuster against Texas’s HB2, the conservative capture of Davis as Abortion Barbie, and the Supreme Court case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt (2016). Because of these key rhetorical moments, pro-choice and anti-choice publics cultivated a period of heightened tension that reinvigorated abortion debates. While pro-choice groups employed narrative to centralize women as rhetorical agents and open spaces to discuss abortion, anti-choice publics used visual rhetoric to vilify women and accentuate the fetus. But with both ideologies adopting scientific rhetoric, the Supreme Court intervened to determine evidenced-based truth and settle disputed abortion law. This helped make abortion a major political issue in the 2016 presidential election and accentuated how legal, political, and public discourses perpetuate reproductive oppression

Reproduction, Politics, and John Irving’s The Cider House Rules : Women’s Rights or "Fetal Rights"?

While hotly debated in political contexts, abortion has seldom figured in explicit terms in either literature or film in the United States. An exception is John Irving’s 1985 novel The Cider House Rules, which treats abortion insistently and explicitly. Although soon thirty years old, The Cider House Rules still functions as an important voice in the ongoing discussion about reproductive rights, responsibilities, and politics. Irving represents abortion as primarily a women’s health issue and a political issue, but also stresses the power and responsibility of men in abortion policy and debate. The novel rejects a “prolife” stance in favor of a women’s rights perspective, and clearly illustrates that abortion does not preclude or negate motherhood. This article discusses Irving’s novel in order to address abortion as a political issue, the gender politics of fictional representations of abortion, and the uses of such representations in critical practice. A brief introduction to the abortion issue in American cultural representation and in recent US history offers context to the abortion issue in Irving’s novel. The analysis focuses on abortion as it figures in the novel, and on how abortion figures in the criticism of the novel that explicitly focuses on this issue. The article argues that twentyfirst century criticism of Irving’s text, by feminist scholars as well as explicitly anti-feminist pro-life advocates, demonstrate the pervasive influence of antiabortion discourses illustrates, since these readings of Irving’s novel include, or reactively respond to, the fetal rights discourse and the “awfulization of abortion.” The article further proposes that the novel’s representations of reproductive rights issues – especially abortion – are still relevant today, and that critical readings of fictional and nonfictional representations of reproductive rights issues are central to feminist poli-tics

Everyone is Pro-life: The Historical and Cultural Influences on Elite Discourse of Abortion in Argentina

Due to its influential roots in Latin America, the Catholic Church is often an explanation for understanding abortion policy discourse and outcomes. Considering the case of Argentina and its debates to legalize abortion in Congress June/August 2018, there may be reason to suspect the Catholic Church as a wholistic or even dominant explanation of the values that were expressed. In this paper, I trace relevant topics such as human rights, the law, science, and health in the debates, ultimately culminating in the conclusion that at the core of all concerns, regardless of the side that is arguing, is life. I additionally suggest that rather than understanding the value of life as an engrained Catholic value, there are regional experiences at play that influence why and how the value of life is expressed in these debates

Do religious justifications distort policy debates? Some empirics on the case for public reason

Scholars engaged in debates about the use of public reason often view religious arguments as being out of bounds. Yet the real-world impact of religious discourse remains under-explored. This study contributes to research in this area with an empirical test looking at the impact of religious arguments on a particular policy debate. A survey experiment explored the effects of religious and secular cues with varied policy directions on the issue of assisted dying. The findings showed that secular arguments were considerably more likely to elicit a positive response, and that, while religious arguments were not a conversation stopper, they produced significant distortions in political perceptions among participants, though not necessarily along the identity lines critical to the public reason debate

Whose Right is it Anyway? A Study of Human Rights Language on Both Sides of the Abortion Debate in Post-Dictatorial Argentina

In August of 2018, thousands of protestors waited to hear results of the vote on the Voluntary Termination of the Pregnancy bill in the Argentinian Senate. Though the bill failed by seven votes, the near passage of the bill and the outpouring of protestors indicated that the issue of abortion had gained an increasing foothold in the legislature and in public discourse. This project seeks to explore in greater detail the emergence of activism on abortion legislation in the decades following the re-democratization of Argentina in 1983. Particularly throughout the 2000s and 2010s, advocates for both the expansion and repression of abortion rights used similar language to argue for their respective agendas, leaning on the local significance of “human rights” in the aftermath of the dictatorship that lasted from 1976-1983. My thesis seeks to answer the question: how have feminist organizations and religious organizations historically utilized talk of human rights to shape the debate on abortion, and how do they continue to do so today? I use a qualitative approach to explore the emergence of human rights language in the history of abortion activism from both sides of the abortion debate. I find that the Catholic Church’s involvement with the human rights abuses of the dictatorship taints the legitimacy of their human rights claim, while feminist women’s organizations tailor their claim to local sentiments in the aftermath of the dictatorship and align their human rights language with larger, international organizations that advocate for expanded abortion legislation

'Gendercide,' Abortion Policy, and the Disciplining of Prenatal Sex-selection in Neoliberal Europe

This article examines the contours of how sex-selective abortion (SSA) and ‘gendercide’ have been problematically combined within contemporary debates on abortion in Europe. Analysing the development of policies on the topic, we identify three ‘turns’ which have become integral to the biopolitics of SSA in Europe: the biomedical turn, the ‘gendercide’ turn, and the Asian demographic turn. Recent attempts to discipline SSA in the UK and Sweden are examined as a means of showing how the neoliberal state in Europe is becoming increasingly open to manoeuvres to undermine the right to abortion, even where firm laws exist

The Church and the law: examining the role of Christianity in shaping sexual politics in Jamaica

This thesis examines the ways in which a number of faith discourses and institutions seen to comprise 'the Christian religion' - at least in its Jamaican manifestations -continue to shape sexual politics and discourses in Jamaica in the twenty-first century. Specifically, I focus on the constitutional reform process and the review of the country's laws on abortion, analysing the ways in which issues relating to sexual orientation (namely homosexuality), abortion and human rights (particularly sexual and reproductive rights) were debated over by various special interest groups. I argue that the influence of certain manifestations of Christianity cannot be overlooked in the analysis of these nationalist projects relating to gender and sexuality. Indeed, based on feminist critical discourse analysis of a number of key government and nongovernmental reports, blogs and newspaper articles as well as interviews with ten knowledgeable informants, I found that a conservative articulation of Christianity works to support and shape a heteropatriarchal discourse on matters relating to homosexuality and abortion, thus impacting conceptualisations and experiences of sexual and reproductive rights and more broadly, citizenship. There are, however, challenges to these conservative manifestations, by sexual and women's rights groups as well as from within other segments of Christianity. This diversity results in nuanced understandings and approaches to these issues within the society, some of which calls into question the dominant heteropatriarchal discourse

Abortion Rights in Quebec and Ireland: Divergent Paths

The ability to control ones personal reproduction should be experienced by all women, regardless of citizenship. For Irish women, however, this does not exist. Irelands constitutional protection of a fetal right to life exists in direct conflict with a womans right to control her body. At first glance, one might point toward Irelands Catholicism, or perhaps its strong sense of nationalism, as likely reasons. When we consider Quebec, a jurisdiction with a historically strong sense of both Catholicism and nationalism, the answer as to why Ireland has one of the most conservative policies against abortion in the western world becomes more complex. By considering competing institutional strategies, the role of nationalism, the role of Catholicism, elites, and other interest groups, and the impact of multi-level governance, this dissertation seeks to uncover how Ireland and Quebec have such different policies regulating abortion rights. With regard to institutions and opportunities for the success of social movements, I consider which factors have been both present and absent from the reproductive rights movement in Ireland, ultimately leading to an incredibly slow progression of the liberalization of abortion access. I emphasize the ways that authoritative agents such as Dr. Henry Morgentaler, political institutions such as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and an effective womens movement came together to foster the necessary climate for change. I also consider the role of various institutions which affected (both via their presence and absence) the reproductive rights movement in both Quebec and Ireland. Through this dissertation I found that a jurisdictions abortion policy is actually a result of a number of intersecting variables. In the case of Ireland, abortion policy has remained quite restrictive as a result of a lack of political opportunity structures that aide in creating a more liberal policy. In Quebec, political opportunities were available for change via institutions such as the Charter, thus allowing for abortion policy to be liberalized. Furthermore, the avenues available for womens movements to create change were very different in Ireland and Quebec