Comparing Abortion Discourse in USA, UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and South Korea

In this paper we summarise our research design to compare abortion discourse in twelve newspapers across six countries (USA, UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany and South Korea) between, 1992, 2002, 2012, and 2022. Replicating Ferree et al.’s (2002) methods to a certain extent, this paper conducts a quantitative content analysis of the historical shifts in the framing of abortion debates, media standing of different individuals and organisations in abortion debates, and positions they take on abortion. We also assess the historical changes in the democratic qualities of abortion discourse including civility, tolerance, pluralism, and dialogic character of the discourse. This paper then, using time-series fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (ts-fs-QCA) (Ragin, 2009), aims to explain the causal recipe for historical changes in abortion discourse in six countries. We seek to explain the character of abortion discourse in broader political and cultural conditions, such as strength of feminist movements and religious institutions, authoritarianism, and the heterogeneity of society on moral-political issues.