TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Introduction - Drew Halfmann
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226313443.003.0001
[civil society, political parties, political institutions, collective actors, abortion, strategic dilemmas]
This book focuses on the interactions between actors in civil society and the political institutions that enable and constrain their actions. The book analyzes the effects of macro-level political institutions such as healthcare policies, electoral and party systems, and policy venues on meso-level collective actors such as medical interest groups, political parties, and social movement organizations. It is shown here that political institutions helped determine when, where, and how actors involved themselves in abortion policy making. Political institutions affected the interests and priorities of these actors and constructed and shaped the meaning and salience that they attached to the abortion issue. Though political institutions powerfully shaped abortion policies, they did not determine them. Plenty of room remained for maneuver and choice by individual and collective actors as they faced strategic dilemmas and trade-offs. (pages 1 - 32)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Part One: Abortion Reforms of the Long 1960s
The Reforms and Their Roots - Drew Halfmann
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226313443.003.0002
[medical gatekeeping, United States, Britain, Canada, social actors, political institutions, early abortion, legal abortions]
This chapter describes the reforms involving medical gatekeeping done in the United States, Britain, and Canada in more detail and explains the differences between them by showing how social actors—social movements and political parties—interacted with political institutions such as state-level policy making, nonpartisan parliamentary processes, and constitutional courts. The three countries mentioned here answered the gatekeeping question differently. The United States largely abandoned medical gatekeeping, allowing early abortion for a woman’s own reasons and in any setting as long as a single doctor agreed to provide it. The other two countries, on the other hand, maintained medical gatekeeping. Britain widened the grounds for legal abortions, while Canadian reform allowed abortions only for grounds of “health” and required that they be provided in hospitals after approval by a committee. (pages 34 - 65)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
Medical Interests and Priorities - Drew Halfmann
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226313443.003.0003
[medical associations, abortion politics, medical-care systems, medical profession, mainstream medicine, single-purpose clinics]
This chapter explains the differing engagement of the medical associations with abortion politics by focusing on the ways in which they constructed their “interests” and priorities in the context of national medical-care systems. The chapter speaks of how the British and Canadian reforms delegated responsibility for abortion to the medical profession, removing the issue from public decision making and confining it to a realm in which decisions were made “neutrally” on the basis of “knowledge.” By contrast, the American reform made abortion a public issue decided on the basis of “values.” Finally, the minimal involvement of American mainstream medicine in abortion provision reduced the availability of abortions by concentrating provision in single-purpose clinics in large cities and being served by doctors that were often stigmatized by their mainstream peers. British abortion services were better distributed and better integrated into mainstream medicine, though Canadian ones were not. (pages 66 - 97)
This chapter is available at:
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Part Two: After Reform
Abortion Services - Drew Halfmann
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226313443.003.0004
[abortion services, reforms, funding, safety, abortion provision, single-purpose abortion clinics, obstructionist doctors]
This chapter examines the organization, funding, and quality of abortion services in each country in the years following their respective reforms. By quality, the author refers to factors such as safety, waiting times, cost, proximity, physical and emotional comfort, dignity, and privacy. The discussion here is divided into two periods: implementation, which refers to the establishment of the main outlines of abortion provision during the first several years after reforms, and post-implementation, which refers to the forty years of policy making after that. The reforms themselves were silent about many aspects of abortion provision, and many developments were both unintended and unforeseen. The main difference between the countries was the development of single-purpose abortion clinics in the United States and Britain, but not in Canada. Such clinics allowed women to bypass reluctant and sometimes obstructionist doctors and hospitals. (pages 100 - 124)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
The Politicization of Abortion - Drew Halfmann
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226313443.003.0005
[abortion politics, political parties, elections, abortion policies, voters, party activists, intraparty battles, electoral campaigns, policy making]
This chapter explains the differences across the three countries in abortion politics—the positions of political parties on abortion and the degree to which abortion has been an issue in elections. Abortion politics is to be distinguished from abortion policies, even if this distinction is artificial. It is artificial because parties and candidates typically campaign by touting policies that they have enacted or promise to enact, and because officials typically choose policy goals with an eye to how voters and party activists might respond to them. It is useful, however, because intraparty battles, electoral campaigns, and policy making are driven by differing causal factors. After the reforms of the Long 1960s, large movements faced off on both sides of the abortion issue in all three countries, and, at least initially, most parties and candidates were inclined to avoid the issue. British and Canadian parties, however, were more successful in doing so than American ones. (pages 125 - 165)
This chapter is available at:
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Policy Change after Reform - Drew Halfmann
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226313443.003.0006
[abortion policies, political parties, agenda control, policy processes, federalism, policy making, medical associations, Canadian federalism, Canadian bill of rights]
This chapter explains the differences across the three countries in abortion policies. It is argued here that the degree to which political parties addressed the abortion issue was one of the main determinants of differences in abortion policies, but there were other determinants as well. Agenda control and nonpartisan policy processes helped British and Canadian policy makers avoid the abortion issue, while federalism and judicial policy making increased access points and controversy in the United States. Medical associations defended abortion rights and sought the expansion of abortion services in Britain and Canada but sought to avoid the issue in the United States. Finally, two major changes in Canadian policy were prompted by institutional changes outside of abortion politics—the changing nature of Canadian federalism and the enactment of a new Canadian bill of rights. (pages 166 - 201)
This chapter is available at:
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Political Institutions and Abortion Policy - Drew Halfmann
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226313443.003.0007
[abortion policies, Britain, Canada, United States, fetal abnormality, gatekeeping policies, own reasons policy, abortion politics]
This book examined the abortion policies of Britain, Canada, and the United States—three countries that shared “secular majoritarian” abortion politics and “gatekeeping” policies during the 1960s but eventually diverged as the United States moved to an “own reasons” policy and “negotiated” abortion politics. During the Long 1960s, Britain, Canada, and the United States all reformed their abortion laws, but the American national reform was more liberal than those in the other countries—allowing abortion on request for women’s own reasons. The British reform allowed abortions only for reasons of health, fetal abnormality, or limited social grounds and only with the approval of two doctors. The Canadian reform was the most restrictive, allowing abortions only for reasons of health and only with the approval of a hospital abortion committee. (pages 202 - 218)
This chapter is available at:
https://academic.oup.com/chica...
References
Appendix 1: Statements on Abortion in American Party Platforms, 1972–2008
Appendix 2: U.S. Supreme Court Cases on Abortion
Appendix 3: Abortion Attitudes in the United States and Britain
Appendix 4: Abortion Funding and Provision in the United States, Britain, and Canada, 1970s–2000s
Appendix 5: Abortion Attitudes in the United States, Britain, and Canada,1975–2004
Notes
Index
