TY - CHAP

T1 - Mainstream, Militant, and Extremist Antiabortion Activism

AU - Winter, Aaron

PY - 2023/1/26

Y1 - 2023/1/26

N2 - This chapter discusses how far-right Christian antiabortion groups in the United States are distinguished from more moderate ones. The objectives are the same, but Winter details how supposedly “godly” violence is a central tactic of extremist antiabortion Christian groups. The antiabortion movement can be divided up into three wings or sectors: mainstream, militant, and extremist. Yet the relationships and boundaries between these sectors and specific movements or organizations within them are blurry (both analytically and practically) and historically contingent, and they are explicitly contested within political debate, the media, movement propaganda, and scholarship. There is relative consensus on the fact that the distinctions and thus definitions of each wing are based on the distinction between ideology and tactics, and that while all oppose abortion and hold a great deal in common ideologically, they use different tactics to achieve their aim and assert that ideology, from the most mainstream and legitimate tactics to the most violent and extreme.

AB - This chapter discusses how far-right Christian antiabortion groups in the United States are distinguished from more moderate ones. The objectives are the same, but Winter details how supposedly “godly” violence is a central tactic of extremist antiabortion Christian groups. The antiabortion movement can be divided up into three wings or sectors: mainstream, militant, and extremist. Yet the relationships and boundaries between these sectors and specific movements or organizations within them are blurry (both analytically and practically) and historically contingent, and they are explicitly contested within political debate, the media, movement propaganda, and scholarship. There is relative consensus on the fact that the distinctions and thus definitions of each wing are based on the distinction between ideology and tactics, and that while all oppose abortion and hold a great deal in common ideologically, they use different tactics to achieve their aim and assert that ideology, from the most mainstream and legitimate tactics to the most violent and extreme.

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9780567694713

SP - 369

EP - 376

BT - T&T Clark Reader in Abortion and Religion

A2 - Todd Peters, Rebecca

A2 - Kamitsuka, Margaret D.

PB - T&T Clark

CY - London

ER -