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CHAPTER 4. ABORTION DISCOURSE IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE 60
native, Protestant women encouraged virulent anti-Catholic and nativist rhetoric
in efforts to persuade American legislators to pass laws that would restrict legal
abortions to life-threatening circumstances” (Sitaraman 1994, 5). Thus, the tendency
toward strict prohibition of abortion was, in part, predicated on maintaining
the population growth of the white and Protestant class.
In the second half of the criminalization period, abortion remained at most a peripheral
concern to most policy makers. It was not until the 1960s that a sustained
movement emerged supporting reform and/or repeal of abortion laws. The explanations
for the emergence of the reform movement, and its timing, have been
addressed by a number of analysts (c.f. Ginsburg 1989, Hershey 1986, Krason
1984, Luker 1984, Mohr 1989, Petchesky 1984, Rossi & Sitaraman 1988, Rubin
1987, Staggenborg 1991, Tatalovich 1988, Tribe 1990). One explanation, following
a model first offered by Eisinger (1973), is that the “structure of political
opportunities” present at the time enabled the simultaneous and independent creation
of separate “micromobilization contexts” (McAdam 1988) of “insider” and
“outsider” activists (Staggenborg 1991), mobilized in part by two “critical discourse
moments” (Gamson & Modigliani 1989) in the early 1960s. The notion of
the structure of political opportunities emphasizes the necessity of simultaneous
system-level factors, such as elite opinion and elite interest, and micro-level factors,
primarily ordinary citizens mobilized into social movement organizations,
for political change to occur. “Micromobilization contexts” is the term associated
with the informal groups into which individuals are drawn, and from which
movement organizations emerge. These contexts involve either people who have
been actively engaged in the issue (“insider” activists), or those who are newly
engaged with the issue at a political or professional level (“outsider” activists).
Often, some widely-publicized event – a “critical discourse moment” – serves as
a catalyst, signalling both insider and outsider activists that the grievances they
feel are not singular, and that there is some reason to be optimistic about political
change.
The issue was debated with increasing frequency and urgency from the 1930s
through the 1960s, first within narrow professional circles, and gradually within
broader groups of activists. Out of this debate, a movement for abortion law reform
slowly emerged. Tribe (1990), Krason (1984), and to a more limited extent
Luker (1984) and Sitaraman (1994), focus on the leading role of powerful professional
groups of doctors and lawyers in attempts to reform state abortion laws. In
this view, the same medical profession that was largely responsible for creating the
ambiguous atmosphere concerning the conditions under which abortion was con-