A "Social Issue" in American Politics: Reflections on Kristin Luker's Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood

• DOI: 10.1177/003232928701500204
• Date: 01 June 1987
• Author: Theda Skocpol
• Published date: 01 June 1987
• Subject Matter: Articles

A

"Social

Issue"

in

American

Politics:

Reflections

on

Kristin

Luker’s

Abortion

and

the

Politics

of Motherhood

Introduction

THEDA

SKOCPOL

WHETHER

government

should

allow

women

to

obtain

abortions

has

been

one

of

the

most

passionate

issues

in

the

domestic

politics

of

the

United

States

during

the

past

two

decades.

Most

political

analysts,

however,

have

focused

on

such

subjects

as

monetary

and

industrial

policies;

social

insurance

and

antipoverty

programs;

the

clash

of

interest

groups,

classes,

and

ethnic

groups;

and

voters’

calculations

of

their

relative

advantages

as

taxpayers

and

as

recipients

of

public

benefits.

The

abortion

question

is

awkward

for

pluralists,

students

of

electoral

behavior,

neo-Marxists,

and

rational

choice

theorists

alike,

and

they

have

all

tended

to

ignore

it.

The

politics

of

abortion

casts

light

on

aspects

of

the

modem

welfare

state

that

are

usually

downplayed

in

the

economistic

theories

of

contemporary

social

science.

The

abortion

issue

reminds

us

that

welfare

states

not

only

distribute

benefits

and

services,

they

also

make

zero-sum

regulatory

decisions

about

which

people

may

have

absolute

and

utterly

contradictory

values.

Similarly,

the

abortion

issue

dramatizes

the

point-well

understood

by

feminist

scholars,

but

less

so

by

others-that

welfare

states

deal

with

subjects

other

than

economic

growth

and

employment,

class

relations

and

labor

control,

and

insecurities

due

to

the

vagaries

of

markets

and

the

life

cycle.

The

interventions-and

abstentions-of

welfare

states

also

involve

gender

identities,

family

relations,

and

sexual

behavior.

Questions

of

family,

gender,

This

symposium

consists

of

revised

versions

of

presentations

originally

made

on

a

panel

at

the

Annual

Meeting

of

the

American

Sociological

Association,

Washington,

D.C.,

August

1985.