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Jacobs Uchicago 0330D 14834 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BALANCING ABORTION RIGHTS AND FETAL RIGHTS: A MIXED METHODS MEDIATION OF THE U.S. ABORTION DEBATE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF COMPARATIVE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT BY STEVEN ANDREW JACOBS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JUNE 2019 Dedicated to my mother. In every meaning of the phrase, this would not have been possible without her. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures viii List of Tables ix List of Supplementary Files x Abstract 0 xi Chapter 1: Introduction 001 The Debate’s Controversy 006 Overview of the Mediation 013 Research Questions 018 Key Terminology 022 Overview of the Chapters 028 Chapter 2: The History of U.S. Abortion Laws 033 Abortion under Common Law 036 Early Views on When Life Begins 036 Early Abortions 040 Early Abortion Statutes 041 The 19th-Century Pro-Life Movement 042 Motivations for State Restrictions 043 State Restrictions and the Fourteenth Amendment 046 The Enforcement of Abortion Laws 048 Unintended Consequences of State Restrictions 050 The 20th-Century Pro-Choice Movement 052 Federal Abortion Protections 055 iii Substantive Due Process 056 Griswold v. Connecticut 058 Roe v. Wade 060 The Right’s Reaction to Roe 067 Human Life Amendments 069 Casey’s “Reaffirming” of Roe 071 How Far America Has Come Since Roe 079 Adoption 085 The Development of Reproductive Technologies 087 Population Decline 089 Abortion Rights Under Siege 090 Types of Challenges 093 Recent Escalations 096 Abortion as Self-Defense 102 U.S. Abortion Laws in a Global Context 103 Conclusion 105 Chapter 3: A Review of the Modern Debate 107 Polls on Americans’ Abortion Attitudes 108 The Morality of Abortion 110 The Legality of Abortion 111 Laws Based on the Timing of Abortions 113 When Life Begins 116 Online Abortion Discourse 123 iv Popular Topics in the Abortion Debate 125 The Philosophical Aspects of the Debate 128 Review of Previous Studies 132 Religiosity 133 Ambivalent Sexism 135 Preborn Humanness 139 Analysis of Previous Research 142 When Does a Human’s Life Begin? 148 The Question’s Legal Implications 151 Motivated Views on When Life Begins 156 Conclusion 161 Chapter 4: Americans’ Beliefs about Abortion 162 Methodology 163 Results Section 1: Americans’ Beliefs and Values 165 Sexuality Morality Scale 165 Views on Children 167 Feminism 171 Rights of Women and Fetuses in Non-Abortive Contexts 173 Specific Rights Implied in the Debate 177 Applied Rights Concepts 180 Discussion 184 Results Section 2: Americans’ Abortion Attitudes 184 Impact of Abortion Laws 185 v Abortion Positions 186 Justifications for Abortion Positions 192 Abortion Rights 194 Perceptions of Fetuses 195 Resolving the Debate 198 Possible Resolutions 201 Discussion 203 Results Section 3: Americans’ Beliefs about When Life Begins 204 Perceptions of When Life Begins 204 Resolving the Factual Dispute 207 Specific Views on When Life Begins 210 Impact of Resolving the Factual Dispute 212 Predictive Models of Abortion Attitudes 216 Model 1 – Abortion Identity 217 Model 2 – Abortion Position 218 Model 3 – Abortion Restrictions 219 Conclusion 220 Chapter 5: Biologists’ Opinions on ‘When Life Begins’ 228 The Human Life Cycle 229 Clarifying ‘When Life Begins’ 235 An International Survey 237 Methodology 238 Survey Questions 239 vi Results – Assessing the Fertilization View 243 Results – When Do They Believe Life Begins 251 Conclusion 256 Science Communication 258 Chapter 6: Group Mediations on the U.S. Abortion Debate 262 Mediation Theory 264 Group Mediations 270 Impressions from the Discussions 272 Survey Results 279 Conclusion 283 Chapter 7: Moving the Debate Forward 286 Is the Debate Trivial or Insurmountable? 289 Contributions to Literatures 293 Limitations and Future Directions 295 Conclusion 297 Resolving Error 301 Coda: Possible Resolution 307 Supplementary Files 0S1 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 3.1: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life on Abortion-Related Issues. 119 Figure 5.1: Biologists’ Assessments of the View ‘Life Begins at Fertilization’. 251 Figure 5.2: Biologists’ Coded Essay Responses to “When Does Life Begin?”. 253 Figure 7.1: Bar Graph of Biological Views on When Life Begins. 294 Figure 7.2: Bar Graph of Americans’ Abortion Stances. 299 Figure 7.3: Bar Graph of an Abortion Typology. 304 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Pro-Choice and Pro-Life Support for Abortion Permissions and Restrictions. 027 Table 3.1: Table Comparing Perceptions of Fetuses and Abortion Restrictions. 120 Table 4.1: Analysis of Abortion Restrictions’ Underlying Concepts. 215 Table 4.2: Predicting Abortion Identities. 217 Table 4.3: Predicting Abortion Positions. 218 Table 4.4: Predicting Opinions on How Much Abortion Should Be Restricted. 219 Table 5.1: Breakdown of Biologists based on Demographics. 246 Table 7.1: Comparisons of Biological and Legal Views of Fetuses. 301 Table 7.2: Pro-Choice Americans’ Perceptions of Fetuses and Preferred Laws. 302 ix LIST OF SUPPLEMENTARY FILES1 Supplementary File 1: Chapter 4 – Survey A 001 Supplementary File 2: Chapter 4 – Survey B 009 Supplementary File 3: Chapter 4 – Survey C 018 Supplementary File 4: Chapter 4 – Survey D 023 Supplementary File 5: Chapter 4 – Survey E 044 Supplementary File 6: Chapter 5 – Survey 1 075 Supplementary File 7: Chapter 5 – Survey 2 083 Supplementary File 8: Chapter 5 – Survey 3 091 Supplementary File 9: Chapter 5 – Survey 4 103 Supplementary File 10: Chapter 5 – Survey 5 116 Supplementary File 11: Chapter 5 – Survey 6 126 Supplementary File 12: Chapter 5 – Survey 7 136 Supplementary File 13: Chapter 5 – Survey 8 146 Supplementary File 14: Chapter 5 – Survey 9 154 Supplementary File 15: Chapter 6 – Researcher’s Script 163 Supplementary File 16: Chapter 6 – Pretest 164 Supplementary File 17: Chapter 6 – Posttest 172 1 The page numbers listed correspond to the page numbers in the Supplementary PDF File associated with this dissertation; it is available on the ProQuest website. x ABSTRACT The U.S. Supreme Court viewed Roe v. Wade as the Court’s attempt to end the national abortion controversy. In 2019, pro-choice and pro-life state legislators are passing laws that undermine the Court’s resolution in Roe and move the debate toward an inflection point. This thesis reports a mixed-methods mediation of the U.S. abortion debate that assesses the conflict and how it could be reduced or resolved. A historical analysis of U.S. abortion laws shed light on how the debate has developed, analyses of online abortion discourse and polls on abortion attitudes outlined Amer- icans’ common ground and irreconcilable differences, and studies were performed to contextualize the role that error and confusion have played in the debate. Americans might see the national abortion controversy as an insurmountable issue because they believe pro-choice and pro-life Americans are diametrically opposed in their stances on abortion, but most Americans support certain abortion restrictions and legal abortion access in certain cir- cumstances. Thus, discussions on whether fetuses are humans and whether they deserve rights distract from the core issue of when a pregnant person’s right to terminate a pregnancy outweighs a fetus’ right to life. While there is genuine disagreement on the permissibility of legal access to elective abortion in the first trimester, this thesis argues that Americans’ common ground can be used to reach a resolution. The question is if Americans, activists, and politicians want to compro- mise. xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION “The fierce, unabating abortion controversy in this country is not over the moment one biological life commences. It’s over the tragic moment when two rights conflict. It’s not about whether a fetus has a claim to protection. It’s about whether the fetus’ claim is greater than the women’s”. The Washington Post1 In 1973, the United States Supreme Court sought to resolve the abortion debate2 by striking a balance3 between a state’s right to protect fetal life and a woman’s right to legal abortion access. In Roe v. Wade (“Roe”)4. The Court held that women have a Fourteenth Amendment right to abort 1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/04/29/the-facts-of-life-scam/051 ec109-fb96-4c2f-99ef-aad4b33707e4/ [archived link: https://perma.cc/M6DQ-YY4S]; this quote encapsulates the essential controversy about abortion and, as reported in chapter 4 on p. 199, a majority (68%) of American participants agreed with this quote; as will be made clear in this thesis, error and confusion have distracted Americans away from this essential question, which might have contributed to differences in how both sides view each other, fetuses, and fetal rights. 2 ‘Abortion debate’ is used to refer to the national controversy about the legality and mo- rality of abortion; this use of ‘debate’ is consistent with Google’s definition: “a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward”; this use is consistent with the depiction of the “same-sex marriage debate” (https://w ww.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/06/27/the-gay-marriage-debate-has-been-won / [https://perma.cc/M84T-JWEX]) and has been used to describe the national controversy sur- rounding abortion laws (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/opinion/letters/abortion-language. html [https://perma.cc/KV2W-HE9C]). 3 ‘Balance’ is used in the spirit of judicial balancing tests that are performed to decide which interest supersedes the other in certain circumstances, see, e.g., https://www.law.cornell.edu
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