Halfmann, Drew T. (Author)
The dissertation explains the character of late 1960s and early 1970s abortion policy reforms, as well as subsequent policy changes, in the United States, Great Britain and Canada. The US established a "liberal" regime in which abortion was available on request in the first trimester of pregnancy, but was rarely publicly funded or provided. Britain established a "state medical" regime in which two doctors approved legal abortions for a range of grounds (including economic hardship) and the majority of abortions were publicly provided and funded. Canada established a "state medical" regime that was more restrictive than Britain's. It required that abortions be approved by hospital therapeutic abortion committees and it allowed abortions only for grounds of physical or mental health. Abortions were publicly funded, but usually privately provided. These differences are best explained by the power and priorities of organized medicine, feminists and abortion movement organizations, but these were strongly mediated by political institutions and the policy legacies of existing health care systems. Organized medicine in all three countries wished to maintain its discretion over abortion decisions, but American organized medicine made only minimal efforts to do so. This was because its historical priority was the preservation of a private medical system and because the movement to repeal abortion laws coincided with credible attempts to establish national health insurance. In addition, American federalism resulted in an incremental policy- making process which facilitated interaction between abortion reform and a broader feminist agenda. After the initial reforms, abortion policy was stable in Great Britain, but there was weak retrenchment in the United States and strong expansion in Canada. Political institutions and policy legacies again played an important role in mediating the strength and priorities of organized medicine, social movements and political parties. Several institutional factors, which varied across countries, acted as barriers to change. These included party discipline (which helped parties to avoid the abortion issue), the relative immunity of political parties to the influence of social movements, and the enactment of initial reforms through policy-making mechanisms with limited democratic accountability (such as private member's bills, free voting and court decisions).
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 62 (2002): 2897. UMI order no. 3024676.
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