Abstract
The abortion wars have continued unabated in the United States in recent years. The pro-life movement has introduced a raft of new legislation in many states designed to further reduce the number and scope of legal abortion services, including “fetal heartbeat,” “fetal pain,”1 and “previability” bills and mandatory ultrasound requirements for women seeking abortions (Kliff, 2011; Smyth, 2011; Crane et al., 2012). At the same time, the national debate in 2011 over the almost four trillion dollar federal budget hinged on just a few million dollars provided to women’s clinics by Congress (Steinhauer, 2011). These are the kinds of battles most people have come to expect of the abortion issue in America. Forty-five percent of Americans consider themselves “pro-life” (Jones and Saad, 2011), and the pro-life movement2 in the United States has enjoyed grassroots support and broad mobilization for more than 35 years now. The movement is well established not only through longstanding social movement organizations but also through deep connections to the political, legal, and religious institutions of the country.
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© 2013 Franz von Benda-Beckmann, Keebet von Benda-Beckmann Martin Ramstedt, and Bertram Turner
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Munson, Z. (2013). Religion, Crisis Pregnancies, and the Battle over Abortion. In: von Benda-Beckmann, F., von Benda-Beckmann, K., Ramstedt, M., Turner, B. (eds) Religion in Disputes. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318343_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318343_3
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