Resources for Reporters

Changing the Conversation

Adding context and intentional clarification around charged rhetoric

 

Rhetoric around abortion — and legislation to restrict it — is intentionally emotionally-charged. Phrases like “heartbeat bill” or “born alive” — are strategically coined and injected into the conversation by the anti-choice movement and merit at least some context that helps to qualify the accuracy of the terms used. 

Many reporters used quotation marks around these terms or inserted phrases like “so-called” before the term. This is a step in the right direction, but still leaves the rhetoric largely undefined and open to assumptions or misinterpretation. It also reinforces and amplifies the inaccurate and misleading concept behind the use of the term.

Many reporters used quotation marks around these terms or inserted phrases like “so-called” before the term. This is a step in the right direction but still leaves the rhetoric largely undefined and open to assumptions or misinterpretation. It also reinforces and amplifies the inaccurate and misleading concept behind use of the term. 

Below are some recommendations on how to contextualize inflammatory anti-choice terms if they are referenced in coverage, along with medically accurate terms and phrases to use instead:


🚫DON’T USE: “heartbeat bill”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: legislation banning abortion after six weeks, before many pregnant people know that they are pregnant (depending on the specifics of the legislation)

Legislation that restricts access to abortion when fetal cardiac activity can first be detected in an embryo, which typically occurs at approximately six weeks, before many women know they are pregnant. This cardiac activity is electric activity among cells that will eventually become the heart, but is not the same as a heartbeat that pumps blood.


🚫DON’T USE: “infanticide”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: abortion later in pregnancy or post-birth palliative care
An inflammatory term used by anti-choice activists and politicians to falsely describe abortion later in pregnancy or post-birth palliative care. Infanticide, of course, is already illegal.


🚫DON’T USE: “born alive”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: abortion later in pregnancy or post-birth palliative care
An inflammatory and inaccurate term not rooted in medical science and used by anti-choice activists and politicians who claim they want to protect an infant who is “born alive.” In these tragic cases, a baby is dying and politicians are suggesting taking away a parent’s ability to make the best decision for their family about palliative care for the infant in exceptionally difficult circumstances.


🚫DON’T USE: “partial-birth abortion”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: abortion later in pregnancy or post-birth palliative care
An inflammatory phrase used by anti-choice activists and politicians in reference to a criminal ban on certain abortion procedures that has no exception for if a woman’s health is in danger, but is intended to evoke disturbing and violent imagery and is not a medical or clinical term.


🚫DON’T USE: “abortion industry/ abortion lobby”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: abortion rights advocates and/or abortion providers
Phrases used by anti-choice activists and politicians to depict abortion rights advocates and abortion providers as an organized interest group and to call into question their motivations as somehow suspect or malicious. The range of organizations that advocate for abortion rights are doing so to uphold everyone’s freedom to make their own decisions about pregnancy, not to seek personal financial enrichment.


🚫DON’T USE: “abortion on demand”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: reproductive freedom
A phrase used by anti-choice activists and politicians to describe the notion of unregulated abortion access for women. In fact, even though abortion is still legal under Roe, women face many barriers to accessing abortion care, and for many pregnant people, they weigh a number of considerations before seeking abortion care. Guttmacher Institute is a good resource on abortion laws that restrict access and erect barriers to care.


🚫DON’T USE: “abortionist”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: medical professional or health care provider
A non-medical term used by anti-choice activists and politicians to describe a medical professional who performs an abortion. The term is intended to undermine the credibility of doctors and other medical professionals who provide abortion care.


🚫DON’T USE: “crisis pregnancy centers (CPC)”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: fake women’s health centers (FWHC)
These are fake women’s health centers that intentionally lie to, shame, and mislead those seeking an abortion in order to block them from accessing abortion care. These centers often do not provide medically accurate, comprehensive, or unbiased information.


🚫DON’T USE: “late term abortion”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: an abortion that occurs later in pregnancy, or later abortion
A phrase used by anti-choice activists and politicians to describe an abortion that occurs later in pregnancy, often due to complex circumstances, such as a serious fetal diagnosis. This is not a medical term.


🚫DON’T USE: “unborn child/preborn child”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: embryo or fetus, depending on the stage of development
These terms are used to shift the focus away from a pregnant person and solely focus on a fetus.


🚫DON’T USE: “pro-abortion”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: an abortion that occurs later in pregnancy, or later abortion
This term used by anti-choice activists mischaracterizes the core guiding principle of the pro-choice movement: to allow people the ability to decide what is best for them, their bodies, their families, and their lives.


🚫DON’T USE: “dismemberment abortion”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: dilation and extraction or D&E abortion
This an intentionally inflammatory and wildly misleading term used to describe the abortion procedure, dilation and extraction (D&E abortions). D&E abortions are safe – and in some states the only – option for pregnancy around or after 14 or 15 weeks. Many states have tried to ban D&E abortions, which in some states would criminalize the only abortion procedure available after 14 or 15 weeks.


🚫DON’T USE “chemical abortion”
✔️ INSTEAD USE: medication abortion
A term used to describe medical abortions – also known as medication abortion– which is a safe and effective way to end an early pregnancy and has been approved by the FDA for more than 20 years. It is often used to make abortion sound like a dangerous procedure, when in fact abortion care has a safety record of more than 99%, according to the Centers for Disease Control.


🚫DON’T USE: “DIY abortions”
✔️ INSTEAD USE:  self-managed abortion
This phrase used by the anti-choice movement to describe a self-managed abortion, where someone ends their own pregnancy, often through medication such as mifepristone and/or misoprostol. The term “DIY” is used to evoke images of abortions being done at home or as part of a “DIY” trend. 


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