Discursive Construction of Political Categories and Moral Fields: God Versus Rights and Access in a Reproductive Health Legislative Debate

Abstract

Using a discursive lens, we argue that politicians rhetorically construct categories, storylines, and moral fields. We further claim that such discursive products are action-oriented toward gaining popular support in a public sphere that is politically fault lined along similar moral orders. As a case in point, we analyze speeches delivered during congressional voting on a Reproductive Health bill (RH bill). Employing a mixed methods strategy, we first implement a quantitative lexical analysis of frequently used words, followed by a qualitative detection of cohering storylines on both sides of the debate. Results show that oppositionists mark their speeches with a deployment of the word God, while bill supporters use the word access conspicuously. One storyline claims that The RH bill stands against God, while the other purports that The RH bill advocates rights and access. Although both storylines assert moral righteousness, they invoke two different moral orders backed by power blocs and the public at large. The God story appeals to a Catholic discourse and the moral order loudly supported by the politically powerful Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. The rights/ access narrative references a liberal morality frame maintained by social liberals and Philippine President Aquino. We end our paper by introducing the idea of an intrastate discursive lens to analyze moral fields constructed by politicians, oriented toward winning support from the public at large.We propose a way of understanding legislative debate through a discursive lens by considering political categorization, storylines, and moral fields as action-oriented constructions aimed at mobilizing political support from the public at large. Our argument moves forward in five steps. First, we clarify that political categories in the public sphere are discursively constructed. Second, we elucidate on the political nature of categorization in the public sphere. Third, we show how political categorization is context laden, as categories are discursively employed to mobilize one's power in political 853 0162-895X

Political Polarization During 2017-2021

“…Abortion meets the bar for contentiousness because of its ability to draw in multiple perspectives that are backed up by different ideals, i.e. Religion, social justice, and science (Montiel et al, 2016). Lastly, healthcare was used as a category both because of Trump's campaign promises regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the ability for healthcare to be an especially divisive political issue (Montiel et al, 2016).…”

“…Religion, social justice, and science (Montiel et al, 2016). Lastly, healthcare was used as a category both because of Trump's campaign promises regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the ability for healthcare to be an especially divisive political issue (Montiel et al, 2016).…”

“…Fusing the church with politics risks taking away religious freedoms for those who do not follow the "dominant" religion. Second, it allows policy positions to be regarded as moral truisms as opposed to actions with consequences, which kills political dialogue and keeps politicians in echo chambers (Montiel et al, 2016). It is important to analyze how certain types of rhetoric affects the American people, and how it can be broken down.…”

Intersectional discourses of reproductive agency in the Philippines: A mixed methods analysis of classed constructions of pregnancy resolution

“…Discursive divergence by class. The two derived clusters mirror the macro-level discourses recently employed in local reproductive health debates (Montiel et al., 2016; Tanyag, 2015). However, as Figure 2 depicts, the micro-level adoption of these two discourses bifurcates discernibly between working-class and middle-class participants.…”

“…Such cultural representations persist in moral imperatives to self-police sexual desire outside marriage (Delgado-Infante & Ofreneo, 2014), or self-sacrifice in the context of familial economic hardship (Ofreneo & Canoy, 2017). In recent years, however, Tanyag (2015) and Montiel et al. (2016) also showed the salience of liberal discussions of women’s rights in opposition to religious discourses of morality in congressional debates surrounding women’s issues.…”