Abortion Policy and How it Relates to Advocacy Coalitions
Pro-life. Pro-choice. Abortion. These are words we are all familiar with. And while they are small words, they are words that cause the speakers and listeners to have a lot of emotion as they use them. Words like “pro-life” and “pro-choice” refer to some of the key arguments that politicians, advocates, lobbyists, and people like you and I use when discussing abortion laws and policies.
While abortion policy is hotly debated currently, it isn’t a new concept. In fact, the first recorded evidence that can be found about abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. An abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. And according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), for today’s standards, an abortion is defined as “an intervention performed by a licensed clinician within the limits of state regulations that is intended to terminate a suspected or known ongoing intrauterine pregnancy and that does not result in a live birth.”
Recent years have seen a slight uptick in abortions. From the years of 2009–2018 in the United States of America, abortions were decreasing, but in 2018, they began to increase again, as can be seen below in the graph. As of 2018, there were 619,591 legally-induced abortions reported to the CDC. This means that the abortion rate was 11.3 abortions for every 1,000 women, and there were 189 abortions for every 1,000 live births.
So while abortion may be increasing, what is it that makes abortion policy such a hot topic in politics today when it has been around for so long? It goes back to those two key arguments — pro-life and pro-choice.
Abortion policy has become a platform with which political parties can differentiate themselves. Those that are pro-life focus on the rights of the unborn embryo or fetus, and that the fetus or embryo has the right to life. Those that are pro-choice emphasize that it is the woman’s right/choice if they want to terminate the pregnancy or not, and that they can make the choice about whether they want to have children, or not. Both groups view this issue of abortion through a moral lens and both sides view any compromise to their values as deeply offensive. There doesn’t seem to be a common ground between the two options, and everyone is forced into a box, to make a decision on where they stand. The policy theory Advocacy Coalition Framework helps to explain why there is such a distinct division between groups, how these groups are formed, and the impact that they can have on this topic and policies related to it.
Advocacy Coalition Framework
The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) starts with different types of individual beliefs. These beliefs can be moral and religious beliefs that inform our political preferences. More specifically, they can be defined as deep core beliefs, policy core beliefs, and secondary beliefs, and they move in a linear pattern, which means each belief continues to build upon the others. Deep core beliefs are someone’s convictions and values. These values can stem from religious beliefs, upbringing, and similar bases. Deep core beliefs translate into policy core beliefs — preferences regarding a policy issue — which in this case is abortion policy. Lastly, secondary beliefs are an individual’s preferences regarding specific aspects of a certain policy issue.
Understanding an individual’s or a group’s basic belief system helps to understand that a difference in religious beliefs, upbringing, values and experiences causes everyone to look at the world in different ways. When individuals who share moral or religious beliefs unite around a shared policy goal, they can work together to change a policy, and this allows for a coalition to be formed. A coalition is a group that forms for a specific purpose or cause. Some examples of a coalition could be a political party, an advocacy group, etc. A coalition may also be known as a subsystem, and with each topic, there is usually a whole network of subsystems.
According to Paul Cairney, the ACF “suggests that people engage in politics to turn their beliefs into policy. As a result, they form coalitions with people who share their beliefs, and compete with coalitions of people with different beliefs.” This explanation, though simple, captures the core of the ACF, that people are engaging in their beliefs, and those beliefs can be deep rooted. Through a coalition or group, they are forming an alliance with people that have similar ideas and goals. This can then be translated into shared policy goals, and desires to implement policy, change policy, or keep policy the same.
ACF and Abortion Policy
The politics around abortion policy can be better understood through the lens of the ACF. The ACF helps us to understand that because of a difference in deep core beliefs, and these beliefs transitioning into values, there are going to be different opinions, and this creates two drastically different sides. Not all, but many on the side of pro-life are religious affiliated groups that have a deep belief in God and the sanctity of life. For example, the Faith and Freedom Coalition (FCC) is one such group among many. The FCC makes it clear that their religion motivates their political beliefs:
Abortion stops a beating heart and ends an innocent human life. A life that is a gift from God and one that we ordain our government to protect.
Though legalized by the Supreme Court in 1973, abortion on demand has never rested easy on the collective conscience of the American people.
Faith & Freedom is working diligently to protect life by working with elected leaders in Washington, DC and in State Capitols throughout the country to enact pro-life laws and executive action that protects women and their unborn children.
On the other side of the argument is a group called the National Abortion Rights Action League: Pro-choice America. Their approach is different from the religious approach. Instead, they focus on equality:
“Reproductive freedom is for every body. It’s a fundamental American value. Without the freedom to control our own lives, bodies, and futures, meaningful equality will remain out of reach.
Everyone should be able to determine if, when, how, and with whom to start or grow a family. Poll after poll has shown that 7 in 10 Americans support access to abortion and believe that any decision about pregnancy should be made by that person with those they love and trust-not by politicians.
Securing our reproductive freedom means expanding access to abortion and affordable contraception.”
These are just two organizations that have formed on the opposing sides of this topic, but there are many others. Pro-life organizations view the issue through a religious lens that considers embryos and fetuses to be human life, while pro-choice organizations view the issue through the lens of reproductive freedom. As mentioned previously, this is a highly emotional topic that causes a lot of division, but within the ACF is a concept that helps to explain this division even more between the two groups: the devil shift.
The devil shift explains that “policy actors tend to perceive their opponents as more malicious and powerful than they really are, while overestimating their coalition’s benevolence and underestimating its power.” Because each group views their position from a moral or values standpoint, they will view the opposing viewpoint as wrong because their values don’t line up. This is the case in abortion policy, but it is also the case in many of the prevalent policies today. This also makes it difficult to come to bipartisan agreements regarding policies because each coalition is likely to view the opposing coalition as malicious.
Policy Learning
While it may seem like coalitions and their beliefs and values always stay the same, this is not the case. Each coalition will go through a continual process of learning and changing. This is known as policy learning. An important thing to understand, though, is that policy learning can lead coalitions to become more entrenched in their views, or they can become more divergent from their current views. It all depends on the situation, and what is taking place. Learning on the other hand can help there to be compromises between groups, or it can cause impassable stalemates.
Learning can happen for a variety of reasons, but some factors that would make learning more likely could be due to changes in the publics opinion, changes in socio-economic conditions, and the enacting of policies that relate to the coalition or have an effect on it. These are just a few examples of outside influences that can cause learning to take place within each coalition.
As mentioned, when policies are enacted on any level, a coalition can then learn from its implementation. While the learning that happens will be viewed through the beliefs of the coalition, it can produce different interpretations, and this is a process that each coalition will go through. The coalition will then use the information that it has learned to reach out to other coalitions and to exercise their power. This is a continual process as the enacting and implementation of policies continually changes the political climate, as new information is brought to light, and as coalitions continue to learn and expound on the information that they have, based on the beliefs and values that they have.
Policy changes that are enacted can also drastically change the support a specific topic receives. For example, recently abortion policy has been at the forefront of American politics. On May 19, 2021, the state of Texas passed SB8, which became effective on September 1, 2021. This bill banned abortions in the state of Texas after about six weeks of pregnancy. This in turn has caused a reaction on the national level and the House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, H.R. 3755, which if passed by both the House and the Senate, would protect a woman’s access to having an abortion.
While the coalitions are still in the process of learning after the introduction of these two bills, it is easy to see that coalitions on both sides are becoming more entrenched in the views that they already had. This can easily be seen by how things played out with SB8 initially.
When SB8 was passed in Texas, different groups took to social media in outrage. In fact, this is something that I personally saw. I saw a lot of people that I personally know post on their stories on Instagram, asking their friends to help them oppose SB8. Different coalitions, like the National Abortion Rights Action League: Pro-choice America used their voice and platform on social media to continue this plea. They became more set in their ways. And this led to the introduction of H.R. 3755, which was in direct opposition to SB8.
On the opposing side, I also saw individuals and organizations/coalitions in support of SB8 on social media doing the same thing. And this meant that when H.R. 3755 was introduced, they also took to social media to oppose it.
And as mentioned, each coalition is still in the process of learning. Initially, each became more fully entrenched in their beliefs and values with the introduction of opposing legislation. But this isn’t to say that this will always stay the same. While it would be difficult to come to an agreement because of the differences in their deep core beliefs, this doesn’t mean that learning and compromise in the future is unattainable.
Conclusion
The Advocacy Coalition Framework can help to explain much of the controversy of the differences of opinions when it comes to policies or ideas. Much of this is because of the deep core values and beliefs that are at the root of the policy. As mentioned above, those that are pro-choice or pro-life are usually grounded in their deep core beliefs, and because of that, view the opposite side as extreme. While it can happen, compromises in situations like this don’t usually happen because the topics are so controversial. As policies are enacted, learning happens, and this can change the trajectory of a policy or group. So really, time will tell whether changes will or won’t happen. But the ACF can help with our understanding in the meantime.
