Dispatch #106 White Lesbian Age 71 Considers How Abortion Care Bans are Being Disguised

June 30th 2023 

860 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President

235 Days Until the 2024 Presidential Primaries Begin 

371 Days Since Supremes Ruled Women’s Human Rights Don’t Matter

Jessica Valenti’s daily posts call out the violations of women’s human rights and track how these violations are being normalized. https://jessica.substack.com  Do subscribe and support Jessica’s critically important work.

Her June 29^th post discussed how the anti-abortion forces are changing their public discourse language in recognition of the reality that the majority of Americans do not support abortion bans.  This Dispatch quotes extensively from her instructive post that documents how this language change is being rolled out.  

The anti-abortion movement is pressuring journalists to stop using the word ‘ban’ when describing abortion legislation. And because these activists will claim that using ‘ban’ is indicative of pro-choice bias, media outlets obsessed with false notions of objectivity just might give in to their demands. 

Conservatives and anti-abortion activists are suddenly refusing to use “ban.”. It started a few months ago with Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who began to replace the term ‘national ban’ with ‘national standard’ or ‘national consensus’. In a statement about Donald Trump’s stance on abortion, for example, Dannenfelser told The New York Times, “We will oppose any presidential candidate who refuses to embrace at a minimum a 15-week national standard…” 

During a CNN town hall earlier this month, former New Jersey governor and current Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said the federal government shouldn’t be involved in abortion “until there’s a consensus around the country.” He went on to say, “I want to see that consensus, and then as president, I want to build off that consensus. Let’s leave it to the states and if a consensus emerges, we’ll know it.” To the pundits who don’t know about the anti-abortion movement’s strategic language shift, Christie was equivocating. In truth, he was signaling support for a national ban. 

Even when Republicans are being explicit, they still won’t use the word ‘ban’. Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham announced that he’d “introduce legislation soon, creating a national minimum standard of 15 weeks.” And when Rep. Elise Stefanik held a press conference to announce that House Republicans would be pushing a 15-week ban, she also didn’t use the word—instead, she said that lawmakers have a role at the federal level regarding “building consensus” on abortion. 

The good news is that the language change is a sign of weakness: Anti-abortion legislation is so deeply unpopular that Republicans are too afraid to call their own bans ‘bans’ anymore. In North Carolina, for example, when lawmakers were trying to frame their 12-week ban as a ‘reasonable compromise’, sponsor Sen. Joyce Krawiec said, “this is a pro-life plan, not an abortion ban.” 

While the eradication of ‘ban’ started quietly, now anti-abortion activists are being explicit. This week, James Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, called the term “the big ban word.” He told The Nation’s abortion access correspondent Amy Littlefield, who covered the group’s annual conference, that polls showed that using the word made abortion policies much less popular. Political director Karen Cross told Littlefield, “We want to talk about ‘protections’ and not ‘bans.’”

Conservatives using dishonest talking points is nothing new, especially when it comes to abortion. But their next step in the war on ‘ban’ is far more insidious: They’re pressuring mainstream media outlets to stop using the word, as well. Reporters who don’t comply will be accused of pro-choice bias. 

Anti-abortion activists will continue to frame ‘ban’ as an inaccurate term. They’ll ask reporters not to use the word as they’re being interviewed—and journalists will acquiesce in the interest of keeping their sources talking. This, by itself, is not unusual: writers will often mirror back interviewees’ language as a reporting tactic, and to be respectful.  Regardless of the language used during an interview, journalists who are good at their jobs will still use the word ‘ban’ in their resulting article. (Because it’s accurate!) Journalists who are less experienced, credible, or adept, however, will be swayed to keep ‘ban’ out of their pieces. 

Anti-abortion groups and Republican lawmakers will call on media outlets to stop using the word ‘ban’ entirely, claiming that it’s inaccurate and biased. For smaller papers, we’ll see local activists and politicians writing letters-to-the-editor, or doing behind-the-scenes lobbying for the language change.  On a national scale, conservative organizations will call out major publications in press releases and in interviews; they’ll also encourage their followers to target them. These groups and politicians will repeat, again and again, that ‘ban’ isn’t “accurate”—and, most critically, that it’s pro-choice language. 

The distressing truth is that there’s a good chance the anti-abortion movement will be successful—at least to some degree. One of the mainstream media’s biggest weaknesses is their obsession with ‘both sides’ journalism, and accusations of bias are likely to scare some publications into changing their language. Others will be happy to comply. When anti-abortion activists decided that ‘crisis pregnancy center’ had too much negative baggage attached to it, for example, they were able to convince publications like the Wall Street Journal to use ‘pregnancy-help centers’, instead. 

The media already paints a dangerously inaccurate picture of abortion: Most coverage gives the impression that America is evenly split on the issue despite the country’s overwhelming support for abortion rights; studies have found that news articles often contain stigmatizing language about abortion; and publications will cite medical facts as pro-choice beliefs rather than established science, while allowing anti-abortion rhetoric to flourish. (Consider the messaging around ‘heartbeat’ bills—very few media outlets will explain that cardiac activity isn’t possible so early in pregnancy.) 

That’s why pro-choice activists, lawmakers and anyone who cares about accuracy in abortion reporting needs to be paying attention to this strategy now. We should be preemptively mindful of the language that local and major publications are using—tracking it to ensure that reporters are calling anti-abortion legislation what it really is. 

Any publication that stops or slows their use of the word ‘ban’ needs to be immediately called out. And as outlets cave to anti-abortion demands, we need to make sure that readers become aware of what’s really happening.  Because expecting the media to tell the truth about abortion is the absolute bare minimum.