Pro-Life Activists in America: Meaning, Motivation, and Direct Action

by Carol J. C. Maxwell

• ISBN13: 9780521669429
• ISBN10: 0521669421
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-08-12
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Maxwell offers an oral history of pro-life direct activism in America from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Through the stories of leaders and followers, men and women, Catholics and evangelicals, Carol Maxwell explores the complex beliefs and desires that gave rise to this activism, sustained, and eventually undid it. Maxwell's interdisciplinary approach weaves theory from sociology, political science, anthropology, and moral philosophy. She pays special attention to several key issues: the role of the participants' diverse concepts of salvation; concerns about social change; their unresolved grief; their personal experiences of abortion; and differences in men's and women's commitment to protest. The book offers a unique window into the minds of individual protestors as they shifted from conventional activism to direct action and gives an important account of the direct action movement as its initial commitment to Ghandian non-violence was broken by the lethal acts that accompanied its end.

Author Biography

Carol J. C. Maxwell is an anthropologist currently residing near Flagstaff, Arizona. Since completing her Ph.D., she has worked on community health research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Choosing Incivility	1	(26)
Defining Direct Action	14	(2)
Research on Pro-Life Direct Action	16	(11)
Pro-Life Direct Action in St. Louis	27	(63)
1978 to 1983: Young Liberals and Middle-Aged Mainstreamers	28	(14)
1984 to 1986: A Mission Resumed	42	(12)
1987 to 1991: Fission, Expansion, and Dissipation	54	(18)
Trends in Violent and Nonviolent Activism	72	(18)
Variations in the Sources of Commitment	90	(30)
How People Came to Sit-In	93	(9)
Why People Sat-In	102	(17)
Conclusion	119	(1)
Coping with Bereavement through Activism: Real Grief and Imagined Death	120	(24)
Anguish and Activism	121	(5)
Linking Affective and Cognitive Responses to Abortion	126	(17)
Conclusion	143	(1)
Abortion Experiences	144	(23)
Research on the Psychological Sequelae of Abortion	144	(4)
Abortion Experiences, Private Paradigms, and Public Discourse	148	(16)
Conclusion	164	(3)
Pro-Life Conviction	167	(35)
What Is Conversion?	170	(1)
The Perspective Clarified	171	(3)
The Process of Conviction	174	(25)
Conclusion	199	(3)
Persistence: A Quantitative Analysis	202	(12)
Strategic Preference	202	(3)
Meaning	205	(2)
Findings	207	(4)
Conclusion	211	(3)
Gender Differences in Motivation	214	(26)
The Invisibility of Women's Activism	214	(2)
Women's Narrative Themes	216	(7)
Women's Levels of Participation	223	(3)
Men's Narrative Themes and Levels of Participation	226	(12)
Conclusion	238	(2)
Individual Choices within Shifting Social, Legal, and Political Environments	240	(10)
Appendix Sample Description	250	(14)
St. Louis	250	(12)
Wichita	262	(2)
References	264	(13)
Index	277