Abortion and the United States: changing strategies in the ongoing conflict

invitation only · SEMINAR · 27.02.2024 14:00 - 15:30

invitation only

In 2022, the Supreme Court case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization struck down the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Over the past five decades, abortion has energized both supporters and opponents and engendered much political strife in the United States. Since the 1970s, the mobilization of a significant anti-abortion movement has worked to influence the broader political landscape. As a part of the conservative realignment in U.S. politics, the movement has helped to make pro-life politics essential to conservatism. This presentation explores the changing strategies of the anti-abortion movement from Roe to Dobbs and beyond, highlighting how this enduring conflict has reflected and shaped other political and social issues.

This event is a part of an ongoing research series organized by the Center on US Politics and Power at FIIA, on the changing characteristics of the United States, and it’s role in global politics.

 

Speakers

Keynote

Niko Heikkilä

Postdoctoral Researcher, John Morton Center for North American Studies, University of Turku

Niko Heikkilä works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the John Morton Center for North American Studies at the University of Turku in the Research Council of Finland-funded "Reproduction Wars: Imaginaries and Mobilizations in the U.S.-Mexico Transborder Region" (REPRO) project. In the project, he examines the policing of women's reproduction in Texas, focusing on how anti-abortion organizations mobilize people to surveil abortion seekers and providers. In his doctoral dissertation, he examined the Klan, the Black Panther Party, and FBI counterintelligence from 1964 to 1971 (2021). He is the coeditor of the edited collection on the methods of cultural history Kulttuurihistorian tutkimus: Lähteistä menetelmiin ja tulkintaan (2022). In 2019-2020, he was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of American Studies.

Chair

Charly Salonius-Pasternak

Leading Researcher, CUSPP, FIIA

Charly Salonius-Pasternak is a Leading Researcher at FIIA and leads the work of the Center on US Politics and Power (CUSPP). His work at FIIA focuses on international security issues, especially Nordic and transatlantic security (including NATO), as well as U.S. foreign and defence policy. Recently he has focused on Finnish-Swedish defence cooperation and the evolution of US and NATO alliance reassurance approaches in light of the changed regional security situation. In 2017, he was a visiting research fellow at the Changing Character of War programme at Pembroke College (Oxford University), where he studied the hybridization of warfare and the impact of the Information Age on the character of war.