Condit, Celeste M. Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change. Univ. of Illinois Pr., 1990.
Celeste Michelle Condit is an associate professor in speech communication in the University of Georgia. She is also known as a co-author of another book known as “Crafting Equality: America’s Anglo- African Word”. The book “Decoding Abortion Rhetoric: Communicating Social Change” examines the terminology and rhetoric used in the abortion issue in the United States. The author looks at how various participants in the discussion, such as politicians, activists, and media sources, utilize language to influence the public’s views and affect public policy. The author also discusses how the rhetoric have a powerful impact on public opinion and policy, and that effective communication strategies are essential to advancing reproductive justice and human rights. This book is useful because it examines the ways in which various stakeholders in the debate use language to shape public opinion and influence policy, the book provides insight into the cultural, political, and ideological factors that contribute to the abortion debate.
- “Public disclosure serves as such a bridge because it is both a concrete material practice and the bearer of ideas. It becomes, therefore, vital to any understanding of the evolution of material practices and ethics. Unfortunately, the few studies that have taken serious account of the disclosure of the abortion controversy have lacked methodological sophistication or have taken a static ahistorical perspective.” (Condit)
- “Omitting this disclosure seems to reproduce the blanket of silence over these feminisms and to rely on a crude distinction between public, or *out-group, rhetoric and *in-group rhetoric.” (Condit)
