Abortion And Sociological Research

A social problem is an issue that people in a community view as being undesirable. Most people would agree about some social problems and their undesirable outcomes, such as premeditated murder and driving while intoxicated. However, other social problems are more controversial, creating a “grey area” in a black and white set of rules. Some of these more controversial issues include: inequality, racism, abortion, quality education, and gun violence. In narrowing my research topic down to Abortion in America, it was discovered that there are countless scholarly journals and respected publications who discuss this highly controversial topic. An abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, resulting in the death of the fetus or

The language of private decision making reflects a moral standard used frequently by women yet virtually ignored in the public debate (Patterson).” The sociological imagination (also referred to as the sociological perspective) helps us realize how larger social normalities influence our individual lives. Also, the sociological imagination allows us to place our focus on the social context of a situation, to see how it shapes or influences our personal ideas, attitudes, even our emotions. The social context is experienced within intricate levels: broad and narrow. The broad social context in reference to the abortion debate includes historical events such as case studies in which laws were put in place and our courts overruled different approaches to the idea. Dating back to 1971, “Dr. Jarvis Thomason triggered decades of robust debate about abortion with a series of analogies, most famously including one involving an uninvited violinist requiring attachment to a host’s body for nine months to survive (McCurdy).” The narrow social context refers to race, ethnicity, gender, and social class. Specifically, this topic is narrowed down to a woman, but this woman can be of any gender, ethnicity, or social class. A subdivision of the abortion rights debate also asks if Planned Parenthood facilities (where abortion

The first is an objective condition, a condition of society that can be measured or experienced. With abortion, this objective condition includes whether abortions are legal, who obtains them, and under what circumstances they are performed (Ex: within a marriage, age, rape or not, etc). The second component is subjective concern, the concern that a significant number of people have about the objective condition. For abortion, subjective concern goes in two directions: Some people are concerned that some women give birth to unwanted children, while others are concerned that some women terminate the fetus’ growing within them. Before 1973, its objective conditions were based on abortion being illegal, especially the dangerous conditions in which most abortions took place because of the fact they were illegal. “The subjective concerns prior to 1973, people were not happy because women who wanted abortions could not get them and that women faced dangers from botched abortions (Henslin).” As a growing number of people became concerned for women’s health and safety being put at risk because they could not have legal abortions, America worked to change the