Luker has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Sociological Research Association, and was invited to the White House by President Bill Clinton to discuss issues of politics and social policy.
[1] Her book Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood received the Charles Horton Cooley Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionism.
The book contrasts the worldviews of pro-choice and anti-abortion activists, arguing that the two sides of the debate on abortion are rooted in different sets of values and ideas about women's roles.
Her thesis was criticized in the 2010s by political scientist Jon Shields in a retrospective in Contemporary Sociology as well as by the New York Times journalist Ross Douthat.
[2][3] The book also explores the historical connection between the rise of both pro-life and pro-choice sentiments, and the desire on the part of physicians to professionalize their image.