Blocking other users is a common act on Twitter but one which is underexplored from a scholarly perspective, particularly the analysis of mass blocklists. Although traditionally associated with ...harassment, blocklists are increasingly engaged to create individualised environments that align with users' personal convictions and exclude apparent transgressors. This study uses a pro-choice blocklist (Repeal Shield) created during the 2018 Irish abortion referendum campaign to explore how users interpret these altered boundaries and blocklists' influence on the Twitter landscape. A metaphor analysis of more than 2,000 tweets discussing the blocklist highlights the dominant concepts in how users visualise Twitter as both a personal space and a battlefield, in which mental health is a key factor. By drawing on discussions of spatiality, agency, gender and online interactions, we can see how these blocking affordances allow users to exist in spaces in which they construct their own parameters to feel safer, raising questions about how harm, health and risk are understood. The article explores how users make sense of conflicting images like 'safe spaces' or 'echo chambers', highlighting the apparent policing role held by blocklists. Users are negotiating the type of civic space in which they want to exist as norms of engagement versus avoidance collide; although digital spaces have always accommodated fragmented interests, the technological affordances of blocklists provide more rigid boundaries, highlighting how the evolving architecture of social media allows users to redefine the parameters of their own online spaces.
This article reports evidence of misspecification of the measurement model for the index of emancipative values, a value construct used as a key explanatory variable in many important contributions ...to political science. It shows that the scale on which the index is measured is noninvariant across cultural zones and countries in the World Values Survey. In addition, it demonstrates that the current index composition mixes different value dimensions and their actual associations with various political outcomes, in particular the index of effective democracy. However, an analysis using a novel approximate Bayesian approach shows that at least one specific subdimension of emancipative values, known as pro-choice values, truly exists and may be validly measured and compared cross-nationally. The article also contributes to the recent discussion on whether emancipative values are a reflective or a formative construct by providing thought experiments and empirical evidence supporting the former interpretation.
We began this project intending to theorise the respectability politics within the Irish Repeal (pro-choice) movement through the lenses of postcolonial and Black feminism, and through the ...experiences of members of Pinjra Tod, a movement seeking the right to mobility for Indian women students. Instead, we found ourselves excavating the inextricable links between respectability politics and the representational politics of academic knowledge production (Cruz in Collins-White et al 2015) in relation to Irish Women's Studies and the racialised politics of representation in the Repeal campaign. Savita Halappanavar, an Indian woman living in Ireland with her husband on a work visa, died tragically in 2012 from septicaemia. This was due to being denied the proper procedures following a miscarriage as a result of an Irish Constitutional Amendment in 1983 deeming abortion illegal in any circumstance. Her death galvanised a turning point in the Irish women's movement, which led to a national campaign that successfully repealed that Amendment. In fact, she literally became 'the face' of the movement--one that remained racially and intersectionally 'tone-deaf' at best, wilfully exclusionary at worst. Our attention thus hovered on this problematique and necessitated a collaborative, dialogic 'working through' of these entanglements. This article presents the substance and outcome of a method of 'pluriversal convocation' that arose from this process. This method coaxed insights into the ongoing Eurocentricism and respectability politics within white western feminism that undermine praxis by promoting 'diversification without doing the work of diversity'. And it illuminated the transformative opportunities created by Black feminist and Indian postcolonial practices of 'wilful connectedness', which has, in turn, generated a basis on which we are cultivating a decolonising feminist praxis.
Public reaction to Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States initially centered around abortion. However, approximately two months after the nomination, sexual assault ...accusations against Kavanaugh were made public. We examined the extent that people's perceptions of Kavanaugh's stance on abortion and people's attitudes toward whether Kavanaugh committed sexual assault were associated with perceptions of Kavanaugh as a good Supreme Court justice. Data were collected from English- and Spanish-speaking participants (
= 2,883) in the United States via Qualtrics' panel. Using an exploratory hierarchical regression approach, we found that people's perceptions of whether Kavanaugh committed sexual assault was a stronger predictor of their attitudes toward Kavanaugh's quality as a Supreme Court justice
(1,2855) = 1736.54,
< .001 than people's perceptions of him regarding abortion, after controlling for demographic characteristics and participants' abortion identity (e.g., identifying as pro-life, pro-choice). That sexual assault was a stronger predictor could suggest the importance of sexual assault regarding opinions of Supreme Court justices or potential over inflation of abortion as a salient issue. Researchers should investigate the saliency of sexual and reproductive health issues in relation to Supreme Court nominees.
The debate has strongly divided Argentinians, pitting conservative doctors and the Roman Catholic Church against feminist groups and other physicians. The bill’s backers argued that it was a crucial ...step for a country that, despite the ban, sees an estimated 500 000 illegal abortions a year. In Chile, the Constitutional Court last year upheld legislation ending the country’s absolute ban on abortions, permitting the procedure when a woman’s life is in danger, when a fetus is not viable, and in cases of rape. 1 Collucci C. Brazilian attorneys demand abortion rights for women infected with Zika.
The 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution, which codified a near-absolute ban on abortion in Ireland, was ratified in 1983 and removed after a high profile campaign to ‘Repeal the 8th’ in 2018. ...This article analyses the language of the pro-choice group Together for Yes and the anti-choice groups Love Both and Pro-Life Ireland that campaigned to ‘Save the 8th’. We combine an application of the Appraisal framework with an account of conceptual metaphor in a Critical Discourse Analysis of the language of both campaigns on the social network platform Twitter. Both sides of the ‘Repeal Referendum’ strategically utilised language across a wide range of semiotic modes. This article assesses the specific role of social media language in the Irish abortion referendum and connects these strategies to the wider campaign tactics of both sides.
This article explores the circulation of #MyBodyMyChoice in a series of deeply divisive political debates – abortion rights and mask wearing during COVID-19. We trace the appropriation of this slogan ...for differing ideological purposes, and its shifts from collective political action concerning pro-choice to the rights of individuals to refuse to comply with mask mandates. Underpinning the values of each is a white liberal racism that operates to uphold dominant gender, class and economic structures.
Studies of the pro-life movement have invariably been undertaken in relation to the pro-choice movement. The stress on comparison has tended to homogenize the two sides, thus understating their ...internal differences. This article extends beyond an analysis bounded by a movement―countermovement dichotomy. Based on ethnographic data and on the Italian case, it considers several questions that arise from revealing the intramovement divisions at various levels. First, there are tensions relating to the relationship between orthodoxy and institutionalized politics: how far, if at all, should there be doctrinal compromises in exchange for influence over public policy? Secondly, the conflicts over modes of action. In this respect, should protests be visible in public spaces, and if so how? These two issues govern the tense relationship between the Movimento per la Vita and more radical groups. Thirdly, the issue that divides the Movimento itself; the ongoing dialogue over the attitude to be taken towards contraception, and thus sexuality. At the heart of these intramovement struggles is the definition of what a ‘real’ pro-life movement is, and how a ‘real’ pro-life movement should mobilize. This article reveals a complex and highly fragmented image of the pro-life movement that, like every social movement of a certain size, is heterogeneous in its demographic composition, objectives and strategies. To show this complexity, the article adopts an emic approach that does not limit itself to a reading of conservative movements through the eyes of progressive movements.
Introduction
With the recent changes to the composition of the Supreme Court in the USA, speculation that
Roe v. Wade
may be overturned abounds. Research assessing people’s knowledge and sentiment ...toward
Roe v. Wade
is limited. As such, we assessed the relationship between knowledge and sentiment regarding
Roe v. Wade
and whether the relationship is moderated by political affiliation and abortion identity (e.g., “pro-life,” “pro-choice”).
Method
In 2018, after Justice Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, we distributed an online survey to a quota-based sample of English- and Spanish-speaking adults in the USA.
Results
Roe v. Wade
knowledge was significantly related to sentiment; higher knowledge was generally associated with greater support for upholding
Roe v. Wade
. However, both political affiliation and abortion identity moderated this relationship. Specifically, higher baseline knowledge was associated with lower sentiment scores among those identifying as Republican and “pro-life.” Those who identified as neither or both “pro-life” and “pro-choice” and Independents responded similarly to those who identified as pro-choice and Democrats, respectively.
Conclusion
Roe v. Wade
knowledge is associated with sentiment; this relationship is moderated by political affiliation and abortion identity. People in subgroups without a clear stance on abortion (e.g., Independents; people who identify as neither or both “pro-life” and “pro-choice”) seem to hold sentiments similar to those more supportive of abortion (e.g., Democrats, “pro-choice”).
Policy Implications
In addition to other data, policymakers should consult comprehensive assessments of constituents’ attitudes toward
Roe v. Wade
when making decisions about abortion and reproductive health issues.
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