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Public Opinion Quarterly 57:305-314 (1993)
© 1993 American Association for Public Opinion Research

ARGUMENTATIVE COMPLEXITY OF ABORTION DISCOURSE

MICHELE DILLON, assistant professor of sociology

Yale University

Using integrative complexity theory and its associated coding scheme, this article explores the structure of arguments on abortion articulated by single- and multi-issue "prochoice" and "pro-life" groups between July 1989 (following the Supreme Court Webster v. Reproductive Health Services opinion) and May 1991. A simple random sample of 13 paragraphsized statements representative of each organization's position was rated by two trained coders on a 7-point scale measuring conceptual differentiation and integration. The debate, as a whole, was conducted at a low level of integrative complexity. Contrary to the "rigidity of the Right" hypothesis, both prochoice and pro-life arguments were characterized by similarly low levels of integrative complexity. Supporting an ideologue hypothesis, the arguments of multi- as opposed to single-issue organizations were more integratively complex.


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