Protecting women, saving the fetus: Symbolic politics and mandated abortion counseling

Johnson, Katherine M.

doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2014.06.003

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…13,14,33 Providers reported a lack of neutral language to discuss fetal tissue and concern that the prevalence of anti-abortion imagery impedes discussing it with patients. These findings support other research on external messages about the fetus 20,27,[35][36][37] and suggest that abortion providers constantly navigate misleading rhetoric and attempt to reconcile it with their own experiences of seeing and handling post-abortion tissue.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

The option to look: patient-centred pregnancy tissue viewing at independent abortion clinics in the United States

Hann

Becker

2020

Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters

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Abortion providers' approaches to patient-centred pregnancy tissue viewing (PCV)when a patient requests to see their products of conceptionis understudied in abortion care. This mixed-method study aimed to identify: (1) if, when, and how PCV is facilitated at US independent abortion clinics; (2) how staff are trained to offer viewing; and (3) provider experiences facilitating PCV. We surveyed administrators from 22 independent abortion clinics affiliated with the Abortion Care Network about their PCV practices and then completed in-depth semi-structured interviews with 25 providers to better understand their experiences facilitating PCV. Results indicate that most of the clinics that provide PCV do so by patient request. A variety of providers facilitate viewing, including counsellors, educators, physicians, nurses, and medical assistants. Timing, viewing location, and staff training vary by facility. Benefits of and barriers to PCV emerged through three themes: (1) patient-centred care;(2) misinformation about fetal tissue; and (3) personal navigations as providers. Providers and administrators report PCV aligns with their patient-centred clinic missions and offers patients opportunities for choice, closure, and access to information. Yet, anti-abortion misinformation about fetal tissue impacts the ways providers must navigate complex conversations about PCV professionally and personally. Clinic resources and concern about adverse patient reactions to identifiable fetal parts present barriers to offering viewing. Understanding providers' experiences and approaches to PCV is an important first step to developing quality practices that can be shared across clinics. The findings of this study support the need for more research and training on PCV in abortion care.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

The option to look: patient-centred pregnancy tissue viewing at independent abortion clinics in the United States

Hann

Becker

2020

Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters

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“…In addition, by invoking long‐held gender stereotypes that socially construct women as a vulnerable, dependent group, abortion regret misinformation has also promoted a renewed paternalistic role for the state in regulating women's lives (Johnson ; Siegel ). Similar social constructions of women have historically been used by the state to regulate various aspects of female sexuality, reproduction, and motherhood (Ehrlich ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“We Are the Visible Proof”: Legitimizing Abortion Regret Misinformation through Activists’ Experiential Knowledge

2017

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Since 2010, many abortion policies emerging at the state level have been designed around the idea of "abortion regret," a scientifically discredited assertion that abortion causes long-term health problems for women. Studies have examined the legal significance of regret claims in case law as well as the role scientific misinformation and uncertainty play in the policy process. However, scholars have given less attention to the intersection between abortion regret experiences and misinformation. We address this gap in the literature by examining how antiabortion activists' experiential knowledge continues to reinforce and legitimize misinformation contained in state policies. We explore the process of substantiating abortion regret misinformation by attaching it to activists' experiential expertise. Based on twenty-three interviews with antiabortion activists, we argue that misinformation receives validation through the certainty of experiential knowledge, which activists mobilize around and use as a source of evidence in the policy process.

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“…Abortion is therefore viewed as inimical to women's interests because it severs the maternal‐child bond. From this perspective, women are constructed as victims who are easily coerced or duped into having an abortion and then left to wrangle with “abortion regret,” which activists contend is the long‐term emotional and physical harm inflicted on women in the aftermath of an abortion (Doan, Candal, and Sylvester ; Ehrlich and Doan ; Johnson ; Kelly ; Manian ; Rose ; Siegel ).…”

Section: Shifting To a Woman‐centered Framingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although solely drawing on anecdotal and unscientific evidence, the decision in Gonzales v. Carhart authorized states to intervene in women's reproductive decisions, even when medical uncertainty surrounds the policy prescriptions (Ehrlich and Doan ; Johnson ; Siegel ). By making highly contested claims regarding the psychological and emotional damage of abortion, the Court further validated the purported causal relationship between abortion and harm (Ehrlich ; Joffe, Weitz, and Stacey ; Manian ; Siegel ; Steinberg and Finer , ).…”

Section: Shifting To a Woman‐centered Framingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Toward that end, anti‐abortion activists have pursued a long‐game strategy of undermining abortion access vis‐à‐vis lobbying for incremental policy restrictions in state legislatures (Ainsworth and Hall ; Joyce ; Rose ; Wilson ). Tracking with this strategy, in 2010, states began to pass anti‐abortion policies to protect the health and interests of women and their unborn children (Johnson ). Most of this woman‐protective legislation was created by AUL, the Washington, DC‐based legal hub for the pro‐life movement.…”

Section: Shifting To a Woman‐centered Framingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Father Knows Best: “Protecting” Women through State Surveillance and Social Control in Anti‐Abortion Policy

Doan

Schwarz

2020

Politics & Policy

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Drawing on a feminist surveillance and social control framework, we conduct a manifest and latent content analysis of anti‐abortion policies passed in the United States in either a state's House or Senate from 2010 to 2015 to systematically assess the scope, content, and implicit meaning of 282 anti‐abortion bills. We find that out of the 727 anti‐abortion measures contained in this legislation, 622 incorporate surveillance, and social control mechanisms that operate together to socially construct women as a dependent population in need of government protection on two fronts: protection for women and their “unborn,” and protection from abortion providers. Fusing together womanhood and motherhood, these policies essentialize motherhood, depicting women as an uninformed group in need of protection from their own ignorance and the practices of abortion providers who are constructed as an unethical group of health‐care practitioners. Related Articles Hussey, Laura S. 2013. “Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Poverty, and the Expanding Frontiers of American Abortion Politics.” Politics & Policy 41 (6): 985‐1011. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12054 Medoff, Marshall H. 2010. “State Abortion Policy and the Long‐Term Impact of Parental Involvement Laws.” Politics & Policy 38 (2): 193‐221. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2010.00235.x Wolff, Kristina B. 2011. “Panic in the ER: Maternal Drug Use, the Right to Bodily Integrity, Privacy, and Informed Consent.” Politics & Policy 39 (5): 679‐714. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00313.x

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Protecting women, saving the fetus: Symbolic politics and mandated abortion counseling

Cited by 12 publications

References 28 publications

The option to look: patient-centred pregnancy tissue viewing at independent abortion clinics in the United States

The option to look: patient-centred pregnancy tissue viewing at independent abortion clinics in the United States

“We Are the Visible Proof”: Legitimizing Abortion Regret Misinformation through Activists’ Experiential Knowledge

Father Knows Best: “Protecting” Women through State Surveillance and Social Control in Anti‐Abortion Policy

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