Abstract
This article examines the transnational work that since the 1990s has increasingly opposed abortion in terms of protecting women. It therefore explores how pro-woman rhetoric is used to foster right-wing politics by way of, and beyond, the fight over abortion. Narratives depicting white women as dupes of a sordid, satanic system of abortion provision ignore the fact that most women report feeling relief—not grief, regret, or trauma—after terminating an unwanted pregnancy. To get a sense of the political and cultural influence that right-wing movements gain when they play the woman card, we must trace antiabortion collaborations transnationally. Reading representations of “woman” cross-culturally and intersectionally, this article analyzes the political collusions and cultural work achieved by depicting white women as victims of abortion. To do so I focus on three countries where national identity is especially bound up with whiteness and where abortion is particularly contested: Ireland, Russia, and the United States. This cross-cultural look at antiabortion collaboration reveals a transnational traffic in tactics, personnel, and funds that fuel right-wing politics and ideology and that therefore contribute to the global rise of the Right that characterizes the contemporary moment.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Spring 2019
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1086/701156
Repository Citation
Mason, Carol, "Opposing Abortion to Protect Women: Transnational Strategy since the 1990s" (2019). Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications. 3.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gws_facpub/3
Notes/Citation Information
Published in Signs, v. 44, no. 3.
© 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
The copyright holder has granted the permission for posting the article here.