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Covert Abortion Networks: How Civil Society Subverts the State and Provides Abortion, No Matter What
Contreras, Sara E.
Contreras, Sara E.
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Thesis/Dissertation
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2025-08
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Political Science
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https://doi.org/10.34944/0z6p-m879
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the ability of Covert Abortion Networks (CANs) to provide abortion access in the face of legal threats and the erosion of the access environment. CANs operate across a variety of legal and practical contexts to help people access abortions, no matter what. A common refrain in the pro-choice community is that abortion restrictions do not work; this project investigates why they do not work. I argue that abortion restrictions fail to have a lasting effect on the birth rate because of civil society’s organizing to provide abortions in the face of legal threats and erosion of the access environment. These networks establish both informal and formal linkages, ties, and organizations to facilitate access despite legal constraints. The level of institutionalization of civil society determines the shape of these CANs.
Using a comparative case analysis of communist-era Romania, Turkey, and Appalachia, this study illustrates how three distinct levels of institutionalization of civil society shape CANs. This study employs a mixed-methods approach to address these questions. A statistical analysis of birth rate data and abortion laws from 1960 to 2019 shows that abortion restrictions do not have a lasting effect on the birth rate. Then, through case analyses incorporating historical analysis, interviews with CANs, and organizational mapping, I demonstrate how CANs are formed and function in various civil society settings. Ultimately, this project shows that no, abortion restrictions do not work well. And they do not work well because of the will of civil society to supplement abortion access no matter what, through the creation and organizing of CANs. Abortion restrictions and erosion of the access environment are heavily undermined by civil society actors who mobilize covertly to maintain access under hostile conditions.
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