This article questions the use of morality frames and gender stereotypes in discoursing about abortion. The morality policy literature puts abortion forward as the paradigmatic example of its object of investigation. Yet, as heated as abortion debates can get, the issue is not always manifest in the spotlight. We argue salience of the issue depends on active politicization through morality frames. This contribution aims to further the understanding of policy (de)moralization by starting from a gap in the morality policy literature. Morality itself, although fundamental, remains under-theorized in the morality policy literature and is hardly ever operationalized using evidence-based theory. Instead, the positivist school in the morality policy literature assumes morality policy derives its qualification from referring to substantive first-principles, that is, to innate characteristics of a policy. Although the constructivist school holds morality policy is better understood as morality frames, they tacitly build on the definition provided by the positivists. This definition erroneously assumes that morality remains stable for different issues across cultures and over time. We take up a structuralist constructivist approach that shifts focus from the content of morality policy onto the form in which it appears. Abolishing the binary distinction between morality and non-morality renders each political issue, theoretically, a latent morality policy. We demonstrate our proposed approach benefits both the literature on framing and on morality policy by investigating a key abortion debate. Our results suggest (conservative) opponents use immorality frames, whereas (progressive) advocates deploy morality frames. We conclude by highlighting avenues for future research.

本文质疑在谈论堕胎时使用道德框架和性别刻板印象。道德政策文献提出堕胎是其调查对象的典型例子。然而，尽管堕胎辩论可以变得激烈，但这个问题并不总是在聚光灯下表现出来。我们认为该问题的突出性取决于通过道德框架进行的积极政治化。这项贡献旨在从道德政策文献中的空白开始，进一步理解政策（去）道德化。道德本身虽然是基本的，但在道德政策文献中仍然缺乏理论化，并且几乎从未使用基于证据的理论来实施。相反，道德政策文献中的实证主义学派假设道德政策的资格来自对实质性第一原则的引用，即政策的固有特征。虽然建构主义学派认为道德政策更好理解为道德框架，他们默认建立在实证主义者提供的定义之上。这个定义错误地假设道德对于跨文化和跨时间的不同问题保持稳定。我们采用结构主义建构主义方法，将焦点从道德政策的内容转化为它出现的形式。废除道德与非道德的二元区分，使每一个政治问题在理论上都成为一种潜在的道德政策。我们通过调查一个关键的堕胎辩论来证明我们提出的方法有益于框架和道德政策的文献。我们的结果表明（保守的）反对者使用不道德的框架，而（进步的）拥护者使用道德框架。最后，我们强调了未来研究的途径。