The Threat of Ideological Indoctrination : Exploring the Adaptive Argumentation within Pro-Life Discourse in Latin America

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates conservative social movements’ discursive strategies and the ways in which discourse is used depending on a constructed threat. This is done through a discourse analysis on online published material by pro-life groups in Latin America, using the case of abortion. The research question is “How does the construction of threats influence discursive adaptation among pro-life actors in Latin America?” It is divided into sub-questions, asking (a) how pro-life actors perceive and construct threats, and (b) how do pro-life activists in Latin America use religious argumentation, pro-women discourse, and law and legal-based arguments respectively, to oppose a decriminalization of abortion? The study finds that arguments centered on rights and the national constitutions dominate. The most common threats are the real or hypothetical legalization of abortion, its increased access or increased normalization, as well as the threat of the international community and gender ideology, and what I refer to above as the hypothetical threat, in which the case of abortion serves as a gateway. The central findings are that the unit or phenomenon perceived as threatened is often the same as what constitutes a node of familiarity, i.e., appeals to individuals based on an experience shared by a community, and that the discourse used in response often reflects that of the constructed threat itself. The thesis illustrates the many ways that the pro-life movements use a combination of discourse based on religious values, gender, and rights to construct arguments, and thereby, the adaptability and creativity displayed by the organization.