1. Social movements organized around abortion
1.1. provide arenas for innovation where cultural and social definitions of gender are in the process of material and semiotic reorganization.
1.2. Fargo Woman's Health Center
1.2.1. the first free-standing facility in the state to publicly offer abortions
1.2.2. represented the intrusion of secularism, narcissism, materialism, and anomie, and the reshaping of women into structural men
1.3. Right-to-life coalition
2. Reproduction, Generation, and Nurturance
2.1. Core of membership on both sides of abortion war are primarily white, middle class, and female
2.1.1. Hard to predict whether women would end up pro-choice or pro-life
2.1.1.1. Devout Catholics became ardent feminists
2.1.1.1.1. describe their encounter with these movements as a kind of awakening or passage irom a world defined by motherhood into one seen as filled with broader possibilities
2.1.1.2. middle-class, college-educated, liberal Protestants became staunch pro-lifers
2.1.1.2.1. describe their commitment to the right-to-life movement as a kind of conversion
2.1.1.3. Most see themselves as working towards the reform of society as a whole
2.2. women described a coming to consciousness regarding abortion in relation to some critical realignment of personal and social identity, usually related to reproduction
2.3. when the interpretation of a particular life event becomes the object of political struggle, it indicates a larger disruption occurring in the social order
3. The life stories
3.1. Pro-Choice Narratives
3.1.1. drawn from women activists who organized to defend the Fargo abortion clinic
3.1.1.1. represent a range of backgrounds s in terms of their natal families, yet all were influenced as young adults by the social unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and by the women's movement in particular
3.1.2. Kay Bellevue
3.1.2.1. voluntary work for a "cause" was an acceptable and satisfying way of managing to balance the pleasures and duties of motherhood with the structural isolation of that work as it is organized in America
3.1.2.2. always linked her activism to a strong commitment to maintain family ties
3.1.3. Janice Sundstrom
3.1.3.1. the problem of birth control made her question her church
3.1.3.2. Midwestern "feminism"
3.1.3.2.1. cultural currents that promote narcissistic attitudes toward sexuality and personal fulfillment in which the individual denies any responsibility to the kin, community, and larger social order
3.1.4. the agenda of women on the pro-choice side is to use legal and political means to extend the boundaries of the domain of nurturance into the culture as a whole
3.2. Right-to-Life Narratives
3.2.1. Sally Nordsen
3.2.1.1. Decided to leave the work force for a "reproductive phase" of her life cycle
3.2.1.2. "They paint the job world as so glamorous, as if women are all in executive positions. But really, what is the average women doing? Mostly office work, secretarial stuff. When you watch TV there aren't women being pictured working at grocery store checkouts."
3.2.2. legal abortion represents the loss of a locus of unconditional nurturance in the social order and the steady penetration of the forces of the market
3.2.2.1. weaken social pressure on men to take responsibility for the reproductive consequences of intercourse