The Moral Veto
The Moral Veto
Why have legislative initiatives occurred on such controversial issues as contraception and abortion at times when activist movements had demobilized and the public seemed indifferent? Why did the South - currently a region where anti-abortion sentiment is stronger than in most of the country - liberalize its abortion laws in the 1960s at a faster pace than any other region? Why have abortion and contraception sometimes been framed as matters of medical practice, and at other times as matters of moral significance? These are some of the questions addressed in The Moral Veto: Framing Contraception, Abortion, and Cultural Pluralism in the United States. Based on archival and sociological research, and speaking to issues in the study of culture, social movements, and legal change, this 2005 book examines what the history of controversies over such morally charged issues tells us about cultural pluralism in the United States.
- Relevant and accessible for undergraduate students in sociology, history, political science, women's studies, and public affairs
- In-depth understanding of the nature of state-level abortion laws in the years leading up to Roe v. Wade
- Places the sociology of culture and symbolic politics at the center of our understanding of social movements
- Provides an interpretation of the historical and political significance of Margaret Sanger, Mary Ware Dennett, and Catholic opposition to birth control
Product details
June 2005Paperback
9780521609845
354 pages
229 × 152 × 20 mm
0.52kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1. Framing contraception within moral worldviews: the early, radical birth control movement
- 2. The mainstreaming of birth control: a new alliance with eugenics and medicine
- 3. Dennett's moral worldview and the catholic moral veto: unsuccessful frames for contraception
- 4. Abortion before controversy: quiet reform within a medical, humanitarian frame
- 5. Abortion and legislative stalemate: the weakness and strength of the medical, humanitarian frame
- 6. Looking back: limiting frames, moral vetoes, and cultural Pluralism
- Notes
- Works cited.
