IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v61y2005i2p393-403.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Visualising abortion: emotion discourse and fetal imagery in a contemporary abortion debate

Author

Listed:
  • Hopkins, Nick
  • Zeedyk, Suzanne
  • Raitt, Fiona

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of a recent UK anti-abortion campaign in which the use of fetal imagery--especially images of fetal remains--was a prominent issue. A striking feature of the texts produced by the group behind the campaign was the emphasis given to the emotions of those viewing such imagery. Traditionally, social scientific analyses of mass communication have problematised references to emotion and viewed them as being of significance because of their power to subvert the rational appraisal of message content. However, we argue that emotion discourse may be analysed from a different perspective. As the categorisation of the fetus is a social choice and contested, it follows that all protagonists in the abortion debate (whether pro- or anti-abortion) are faced with the task of constructing the fetus as a particular entity rather than another, and that they must seek to portray their preferred categorisation as objective and driven by an 'out-there' reality. Following this logic, we show how the emotional experience of viewing fetal imagery was represented so as to ground an anti-abortion construction of the fetus as objective. We also show how the arguments of the (pro-abortion) opposition were construed as totally discrepant with such emotions and so were invalidated as deceitful distortions of reality. The wider significance of this analysis for social scientific analyses of the abortion debate is discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Hopkins, Nick & Zeedyk, Suzanne & Raitt, Fiona, 2005. "Visualising abortion: emotion discourse and fetal imagery in a contemporary abortion debate," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 393-403, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:2:p:393-403
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(04)00611-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oaks, Laury, 2003. "Antiabortion positions and young women's life plans in contemporary Ireland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 56(9), pages 1973-1986, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Becker, Andréa & Hann, Lena R., 2021. "“It makes it more real”: Examining ambiguous fetal meanings in abortion care," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    2. Broussard, Kathleen, 2020. "The changing landscape of abortion care: Embodied experiences of structural stigma in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lalor, Joan & Begley, Cecily M. & Galavan, Eoin, 2009. "Recasting Hope: A process of adaptation following fetal anomaly diagnosis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 462-472, February.
    2. Graham, Ruth H. & Robson, Stephen C. & Rankin, Judith M., 2008. "Understanding feticide: An analytic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 289-300, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:2:p:393-403. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.