Abortion remains a contentious issue, which greatly raises ethical problems. This thesis examines the leading arguments in the Swedish abortion debate around the – in terms of legislation – critical years of 1938 and 1974. With Foucault's genealogical method, Butler's theories of gender as a social construction in relation to power and doxa, the study examines what the development of the argumentation says about the views on morality, the woman's body, life, individual and state? How has the arguments pro and against abortion changed over time and what does this say about the norms that guide and orientate the arguments? The most obvious change in argumentation is seen in the shift from an absolute moral and conservative position into an increasingly relativistic and liberal position, and this study will argue that this shift has its prerequisites in the changing status of the citizen and state. Yet, despite these developments, a moral ambivalence can be discerned in the arguments advanced in favour of the right to abortion. The question of what life is grievable and when this occurs is constantly negotiated. This constant negotiation is modulated and modified by different discourses. As this study shows, the absolutistic and the relativistic discourse gives rise to radically different positions. But while the relativistic discourse once radicalized the discussion on abortion, mainly because it served to relativize an absolutist position, it serves radically other purposes today. The subjectivist stance could even be seen to threaten individual’s right to self-determination over their own bodies.

Zugl.: Halle (Saale), Univ., Diss., 2006

Univ., Diss--Tübingen, 2007.

Univ., Diss.--München, 1994.

Zugl.: Halle (Saale), Univ., Diss., 2006

Zugl.: München, Univ., Magisterarbeit, 2007

Thèses (M.A.)--Université de Sherbrooke (Canada), 2003. / Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 20 juin 2006). Publié aussi en version papier.

Diss.--Philosophische Fakultät I--Universität Zürich, 1993/1994. / Bibliogr. p. 170-175.

Texte remanié de: Th. doct.--Liège. / Contient le texte latin des 4 versions des "Sophismata asinina" de Guillaume Heytesbury. Bibliogr. p. 635-640.

This dissertation proposes a new framework for understanding how argumentation and rhetorical action unfold in digital space. While studies in the field of rhetorical theory often address new discursive practices in spaces like Twitter and Facebook, they do not always assess the ways that the platforms themselves can influence the forms and conventions of argumentation. Similarly, the field of new media studies has attended to the structural and technical components of digital platforms, but rarely views these details through a rhetorical lens. Thus, this dissertation combines the two disciplines by approaching its thesis from two angles. First, it employs major scholarly and theoretical work from the field of rhetorical studies to determine the ways in which digital rhetorical practices align with or differ from previous ones. Second, it combines new media scholarship with close readings of digital texts, in order to examine how argumentation functions across different media platforms. This interdisciplinary approach provides unique insight into the ways that media platforms and rhetorical practices coevolve. The dissertation’s central term, “emergent arguments,” marks an epistemological shift away from the idea that an argument resides within a single text or narrative. Instead, arguments emerge from sustained and engaged interactions with digital communities, from explorations of hyperlinked trails of information, from patterns of images, words, and datasets. In digital space, knowledge is constructed communally, meaning that argumentation takes place in collaboration with a community. The project follows closely with the work of Aristotle and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, where argumentation is an inherently social act driven by cultural context and shared knowledge. The dissertation builds upon this premise by claiming that digital media make this sociality visible, traceable, and more dynamic than previous communicative platforms. It ultimately argues that in digital space, meaning itself is social, intertextual, and multimodal.