SOCIAL PROBLEMS: A Down-to-Earth Approach, 8/e

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Issues in Social Problems A PROBLEM FOR SOME IS A SOLUTION FOR OTHERS: THE RELATIVITY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS To be socialized means to learn ways of looking at the world. As we participate in groups—from our family and friends to groups at school and work—their perspectives tend to become part of how we view life. Among the other perspectives that we learn is a way of viewing the objective conditions of social problems. The meanings that objective conditions have for us are not written in stone. The views that we currently have arose from our experiences with particular groups and our exposure to certain ideas. Experiences with different groups, or encounters with different ideas and information, can similarly change our position on a social problem. We might think that the subjective concerns we have now are the only right and reasonable way of viewing some objective condition. But just as we arrived at our subjective concerns through our social locations, so our views can change if our journey takes us in a different direction. In short, our views, or subjective concerns, are relative to our experiences. This relativity is illustrated in the social problem of abortion. The central issue is how people define the status of the unborn. Is the fetus a human being, as the antiabortionists believe, or only a potential human, as the proabortionists believe? Let’s look at the two main opposing views. THE FETUS IS NOT A HUMAN BEING This is the position of most people who believe that abortion is a woman’s right. “The fetus is a potential person that looks increasingly human as it develops” (NARAL Pro-Choice America). It follows, then, that abortion is not killing but merely a medical procedure. It is the woman’s right to have an abortion for whatever reason she expresses—from financial pressures to health problems—and for the purpose of attaining her goals, whether those be to limit family size, to finish school, to win a promotion at work, or to fulfill any other plans that she might have. The state, therefore, should permit abortion on demand. WHAT DO YOU THINK? How people define the unborn is the essence of their position on abortion. That which is pictured here is about eleven weeks’ gestation. To describe it, those on one side of the abortion controversy use terms such as fetus and “product of conception,” while those on the other side call it a baby. THE FETUS IS A HUMAN BEING This is the position of most people who oppose abortion. It follows, then, that abortion is murder, the killing of unborn babies. To simply want an abortion cannot justify murdering a baby. We need to protect and nourish these babies, not kill them. Women have no right to abortion, for it is not just their bodies that are involved but also the lives of other humans—their children. The exception is when another human life, the mother’s, lies in the balance. The state has no business legalizing murder, and abortion should be illegal. WHAT DO YOU THINK? 8 CHAPTER 1 HOW SOCIOLOGISTS VIEW SOCIAL PROBLEMS: THE ABORTION DILEMMA
TABLE 1-2 How Definitions of Abortion Affect People’s Views WHO DOES THE DEFINING? People Who Favor Abortion People Who Oppose Abortion People Who Do Abortions Source: Modified from Roe 1989. WHAT ABORTION IS WHAT IS ABORTED THE WOMAN A woman’s right Fetus Independent individual The Natural History of Social Problems: Four Stages Sociologists have found that social problems go through four stages, which they call the natural history of a social problem. Let’s continue with the example of abortion to see how this process occurs. To do this, it is important to set the background for understanding abortion in the United States. Before 1970, abortion was illegal in all 50 U.S. states. Although several states had liberalized their abortion laws, they still kept abortion illegal except for special circumstances, such as when pregnancy endangered the mother’s life. Then in 1970, in an unprecedented move, Hawaii legalized abortion. Hawaii’s law defined abortion as a private, noncriminal act. What made Hawaii receptive to such radical change? Three background factors are significant (Steinhoff and Diamond 1977). First, more than three-quarters of the population lived on the island of Oahu. Here, they had a tradition of personally knowing their politicians and participating in public hearings. Second, two-income families had become common, and half of the women over age 16 worked. Finally, an epidemic of German measles hit Hawaii in 1964 and 1965. During this time, many obstetricians aborted fetuses to prevent them from being born with deformities. This was a turning point for Hawaiian physicians, and the rate of abortion never fell back to its pre-1964 level. Now that we’ve set this brief background, we can trace the natural history of abortion. Let’s look at how it developed in Hawaii, as well as in the United States as a whole. As we do so, you will see that social problems go through four stages. The First Stage: Defining the Problem, the Emergence of Leaders, and Beginning to Organize The Act of Abortion DEFINING THE PROBLEM. As you have just seen, for a social problem to come into being, people have to become upset about some objective condition. This involves a shift in outlook, a questioning of something that had been taken for granted. This change in perspective can come about in several ways. For example, if values change, an old, established pattern will no longer look the same. This is what happened with abortion. The 1960s brought extensive, wrenching social change to the United States. Young people—primarily teenagers and those in their 20s—challenged long-established values. Amidst political uproar, accompanied by widespread demonstrations, many new values were adopted. The women’s THE RESULTING VIEWS A service to women The One Who Performs the Abortion Murder Baby Mother Killing a baby Murderer Part of my work Fetus Client A medical procedure Skilled technician Professional THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS: FOUR STAGES 9
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