The Pro-choice Movement

Organization and Activism in the Abortion Conflict

in English, 229 pages,
Oxford University Press on Demand, March 10, 1994
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In this highly-praised analysis of the pro-choice movement, Suzanne Staggenborg traces the development of the movement from its origins through the 1980s. She shows how a small group of activists were able to build on the momentum created by other social movements of the 1960s to win their cause–the legalization of abortion in 1973–and argues that professional leadership and formal organizational structures, together with threats from the anti-abortion movement and grass-roots support, enabled the pro-choice movement to remain an active force even after their primary goal had been achieved.