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Published on: March 1, 2017
The "abortion imaginary": Shared perceptions and personal representations among everyday Americans
Tricia C Bruce1, Kendra Hutchens2, Sarah K Cowan3
1Center for the Study of Religion and Society, University of Notre Dame, Holy Cross Dr., Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
Abstract:
Drawing upon 217 in-depth interviews and the concept of the "social imaginary," we introduce the "abortion imaginary"-a set of shared understandings regarding abortion and abortion patients. We identify four interrelated facets of the U.S. abortion imaginary pertaining to who gets an abortion and why: maternal inevitability, economic decision-making, relationship precarity, and emotional fragility. We then show how shared perceptions of abortion patients diverge into polarized opinions, revealing how those who know someone who has had an abortion differ from those who do not. Centering personal "exemplars," we integrate conceptual work on social imaginaries with contact theory to illuminate how divergent opinions coexist with shared cultural understandings.
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