Feminism By Other Means

Reframing The Abortion Debate In Portugal

Bibliographic Data

ID3906250
AuthorsMargarite J Whitten (0000-0002-8541-7408, University of Coimbra, corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume04
Issue04
Publication date2009-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
Venuee-cadernos CES (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1647-0737 • E-ISSN: 1647-0737
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/eces.227
OpenAlexW2053002855
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited12

On February 11, 2007, Portugal posed a referendum aimed at decriminalizing abortion and making it free on demand during the first ten weeks of pregnancy—the referendum passed. There was a noticeable shift in the arguments of the Yes campaign between the referendums in 1998 and 2007. Feminist discourse was intentionally and explicitly excluded from the 2007 Yes campaign after being blamed for the failure of the first referendum, even though the Yes campaign lost by less than a 1% margin in 1998. I will discuss this decision from within the Portuguese feminist movement, analyze why certain discourses were used and others silenced, and suggest that the decision to excise traditional feminist discourse from the movement was a strategy used by feminists to achieve the goal of abortion reform

Abortion · Cognitive reframing · Feminism · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · Pregnancy · Referendum · Sociology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Social Policy and Reform Studies · Social Psychology

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