‘Anti-abortion’ isn’t the same thing as ‘pro-life’
Scholars of communication for decades have studied how rhetoric matters — how language choices are strategic and can substantially affect the outcome of debates and policy on important public issues. Recent intense and emotionally charged abortion arguments in several states offer powerful illustrations of the way language makes a difference.
My own research about “language-inuse” over the past 40 years demonstrates that audiences often internalize and repeat the words initially employed by politicians on a given issue, setting the agenda for debate. This in turn subconsciously shapes attitudes, rendering it difficult to alter the direction of future arguments on the topic.
From a rhetorical perspective, the recent Alabama law prohibiting abortion in almost all cases (including rape and incest) and severely punishing doctors who perform abortions, as well as similar draconian and extremist laws passed by Georgia, Missouri and Ohio, are not actually “pro-life” policies. More accurately, they may be “pro-birth” — perhaps even “forced-birth” and “antiwomen” laws.
If anti-abortion laws were genuine “pro-life” measures, they would include provisions guaranteeing food, health care and other essentials necessary to sustain life. Moreover, those supporting and voting for these laws would not simultaneously cut or reduce the funding for programs such as Planned Parenthood and Medicaid,which provide health care for mothers and children.
The use of “pro-life” language is unmistakably a calculated public relations decision to tap into the value system of conservatives and evangelicals who view abortion as exclusively about protecting the “life” of an unborn — and not about the larger issue of the health and well being of women, and certainly not that of their children.
Why is this significant? Rhetorically, framing the debate as “pro-life” versus “pro-abortion” empowers anti-abortion advocates to assume a higher moral ground. This erroneous framing not only distorts the argument but makes it far easier to convince state legislators to adopt extreme policies prohibiting almost all cases of abortion and harshly punishing doctors and women who violate the restrictive new laws.
To discourage the further adoption of this type of legislation, pro-choice defenders must do a better job of finding the precise language that more persuasively conveys their position — protecting the reproductive rights and health of women and girls, providing access to contraception, advancing sex education, and securing the right to a safe abortion while working at the same time to reduce the need for the procedure.
Those who seek to fend off the increasing number of inflexible abortion laws might have more persuasive traction if they use words such as “forcedbirth” and “anti-woman” to describe those proposing the prohibition of abortion. This would help the public discover how anti-abortion advocates cloak their arguments in and hide behind “pro-life” terminology.
Regardless of what one believes or what policies they propose, the choice of language has enormous rhetorical sway. Words matter.